You can see that Stalin was directly responsible for increasing life expectancy from 37 years (in 1930) to 58 (in 1955). That's 20 more years! And the communist policies almost doubled life expectancy until it started to stagnate in the 60s.
Also, part Stalin, part Lenin were responsibly for erradicating illiteracy from the Soviet Union, read about the Likbez.
Those are facts, not some works of fiction written by some dude 20 years before the russian revolution.
It just makes no sense to argue like that.
If you want to change your mind that many Gulags where death camps have a read:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gxp6fb
>>Russia's Penal Colony in the Far East: A Translation of Vlas Doroshevich's"Sakhalin"