I never fully trusted this claim from this primary source, and actually trust it more now knowing the CIA never said it as an org but instead just one informant. If the CIA had said it, I'd be more afraid that they were only saying it to get an angle on the USSR by doing so. This makes it more credible.

I refuse absolutely the claim that this makes this useless or wrong. Some people not reading further to understand the context is a problem, but not our problem directly. Instead, we should just reply to the spreading of this document with more information. Anna Louise Strong (like @Cowbee@hexbear.net said) has tons of sources and good information about Stalin's real powers and usage of them. And Losurdo's "Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend" has tons of citations for this too, as well as being a good enough argument to cite itself. If anyone wants the citatinos, I would be willing to re-read relevant parts and find the pieces referenced. Its strength is the fact that it almost solely uses anti-Stalinists to make its claims.