Sorry to reply so late, the flu launched a surprise attack on me yesterday.

I know that it's difficult to make people read, and they're not always to blame. At the end of a day struggling for bread, they'd rather have games, the machine works perfectly.
But it's not a valid reason to manipulate and misinform them. I've been reading your comments for some times now, and I'm inclined to believe that you seek to make comrades out of those you interact with (and also the bystanders); such a relationship must be based on factual informations and honesty. Otherwise, you take the risk of seeing those you've convinced cast into question your truthfulness about other topics should they take a look into the nature of that report; worse, it could push them away from socialism...
History books might be less efficient than pointing at the enemy and saying "look, even they admit [thing]", but it's factual and difficult for an honest person to attack.

The CIA’s later report seems to more be the “official line” rather than genuine analysis IMO.

Be it toeing the party line or genuinely believing it, they weren't able to poach someone from the politburo (in the fifties at least, as they admit; counter-intelligence in the USSR was impressive at the time), they had no first-hand information on which to base their opinion.

I guess the grammar and coherence of this comment is subpar, but, erm, second language + flu = this 😞