Why did Stalin admire Hitler?

Question

I have been reading John Lukacs book: Stalin and Hitler 1941. In it, Lukac attempts to argue that National Socialism was much more popular among the masses. Do you have and perspectives besides speculations?

Answer 1

I never asked him but I suspect it was because he made the trains run on time.

Answer 2

Because he feared him.

Answer 3

Probably for the same reasons Ann Coulter does...

I think that his Fascism was more popular than his socialism... just like America today really...

Answer 4

He turned the German economy around.  He created a powerful military, and he did it all with no push back.  Stalin admired Hitler all the way up to the point that Hitler stabbed him in the back and invaded.  

Answer 5

Stalin was always leery of Hitler because Hitler destroyed the Communist Party in Germany and either killed their leaders or put them in concentration camps.  In addition, Hitler had written that Germans needed Lebensraum and that the land in Eastern Europe was needed for German expansion.  

Stalin probably admired Hitler's ability rebuild Germany's economy and military and his ruthlessness but meanwhile Stalin bought time in order to try to build up the Soviet military.