: Sauron does resemble Stalin more than Hitler among the two men tied for first place as the evilist of our times: Hitler was genuinely popular and given to making fiery speeches to rally the fanatic enthusiasm of his followers. there is none of that in Mordor. Like Stalin, Sauron stayed hidden in his tower, pulling strings and manipulating through fear and suspicion, save that Stalin was paranoid, seeing plots against him everywhere. Sauron was much more secure in his power.
: One last aspect: modern totalitarian rulers set-up several bureaucracies with similar functions, competing with one another so as to keep them from uniting to overthrow #1. Don't see that here, no one is plotting to overthrow Sauron.

I agree with you partially. I think Sauron's realm was a combination of Hitler and Stalin. I just saw something on the History Channel last night analyzing the power structure in Hitler Germany. The conclusion was that for an autocracy, Hitler Germany was awefully chaotic. Various factions fought with one another for Hitler's favor. Hitler was surprisingly an absentee dictator. We see some analogous behovous with the orcs of Baradur and the orcs of the Morgul vale. They'd just as soon kill eachother as kill the Free Peoples.

Sauron personally was more like Stalin - in control, hands on, top down leader.

But that makes what we see somewhat of a dichotomy. At the middle and lower echelons its much like Nazi autocratic chaos. At the top is like Stalinist dictatorship.

Russ