Great on you for owning up! If you want to learn more about Stalin specifically, Domenico Losurdo’s Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend is one of the best contextualizations of Stalin to date. Losurdo doesn’t make him out to be a saint nor an exceptional Hitler-like demon, but instead correctly places him in his historical context using western sources. Though, of course, it’s a disservice to the millions of soviets to reduce the achievements of the soviet union purely to Stalin.