The book is "How Russia Prepared. U.S.S.R. beyond the Urals." by Maurice Edelman, published in 1942.
The G.P.U., whose name was changed to N.K.V.D., with it's change of function. It has become something like a combination of our Ministry for Home Security and the road transport division of the Ministry of Transport.......the dissidents whom the G.P.U. interned were not allowed to decay in idleness. The internees were put to the task of improving Soviet communications, particularly by road and canal.
Ministry for Security and Transport, hmmmm. And not letting them decay in idleness.
The peasants took to tea when they discovered in it a cheap stimulant which could replace vodka when failure of the potato crop restricted supplies.
Tea drinking is fine, but I don't see it as a substitute for vodka, can you?
And there's a whole section on the only reason that the party promoted a cult of personality around Stalin was that the peasants needed a political symbol to turn to in reverence and a father figure for comfort.
