I actually agree with you that this is not that great of a source. It debunks the claim that the USSR starved its people in general but does not show the time of Stalin. There are of course many comrades here who can point to how Stalin didn’t starve the USSR either, but the point still stands.
If a communist state in 1980s didn’t starve their people then it follows that socialism without starvation is possible. The starvation argument isn’t done cause liberals care about victims - they don’t really - they care about denying the viability of socialist projects. When even the Soviet Union with all its falls was able to do achieve what the CIA did show, then this means the socialist project is viable and could work in various versions.
This is the real point here.
