So, taken together, the source seems to believe there is a dictatorship in the Soviet Union, that Stalin was the captain, but that his absolute power or singularity is often exaggerated. As it so happens, this understanding is closer to the conclusion that many modern scholars have arrived at: that Stalin wasn't a despot in the sense of having absolute, total power, but he was still dictatorial in the sense of having near-absolute power at the head of a small, unaccountable group of people. So our claim isn't exactly earth-shattering.

But to get back to the point, even if this document was 100% factual, it doesn't exactly say the Soviet government was non-dictatorial. It definitely doesn't say it was democratic, had checks and balances, or anything like that. There's no indication of Stalin being constrained by the people, for example. It's at best only saying, in the opinion of the source at least, there was more of an oligarchic dictatorship rather than a one-man dictatorship.

I find it really weird that they have done such a good job thinking critically to disabuse us of the validity of this source but then do such a bad job interpreting its contents. "Wide powers" does not mean "near-absolute" power, even the President of the US has "wide powers" and he obviously is not a dictator (though we can make token remarks about how the current one is trying with the expansion of the police state, etc.) Then this is backpedaled to calling the SU a bureaucracy, which I actually agree with, but it doesn't really reconcile these views, so it's like a preemptive motte-and-bailey.