I want to start by saying that's controversial. Famines were frequent in that area way before the Soviet Union even existed. Can you attribute these to Stalin's policies alone? Nobody would blame Coolidge for the Dust Bowl.

But you're right that 1.5 million is too small. I read again and there's about 3 million officially recorded victims. I cannot trust or distrust the higher figures, as these were reported either by western media or political dissidents, both of whom have very good reasons to demonise the USSR.

Just as the USSR spread a lot of lies about the Western world, I don't trust the Western media about these controversial subjects.