A vivid example of dictatorship in this period is given by Lenin, in a contrast drawn between dictatorship by property and dictatorship by workers. “The state has forcibly to evict a family from a house. This is done time and again by the capitalist state and will be done by our proletarian state. . . . The capitalist state evicts the workers’ family which has lost its breadwinner and is unable to pay rent.” After describing the enforcement by a squad of police of the rights of property against poor people, Lenin continues with the picture of the dispossession of a rich man by the workers’ state.

“Our detachment of workers’ militia consists, let us say, of fifteen people—two sailors, two soldiers, two class-conscious workers (of whom only one, let us assume, is a member of our Party or a sympathizer), one intellectual, and eight members of the toiling poor; at least five are necessarily women, domestic servants, unskilled workers, and so on. They come to the rich man’s house, inspect it, and find that there are five rooms occupied by two men and two women. “This winter, citizens, you must confine yourselves to two rooms and place two rooms at the disposal of two families that are now living in cellars. For the time being, until with the help of engineers (you are an engineer, I think?) we build good dwellings for all, you will have to put yourselves to inconvenience. Your telephone will serve ten families. This will save about a hundred hours’ work in running to the stores and so forth. The student citizen in our detachment will write out two copies of the text of this state order and you will be kind enough to give us a signed declaration that you undertake to abide by it faithfully.” This is a vivid example of a dictatorship over property enforced by great masses of the common people.

Strong quotes Lenin’s “Will the Bolsheviks Retain Power?” from 1917

I took part in a very informative protest/guided tour once, that went around the neighborhood of the rich rich of my city. It sometimes took around 10 minutes between houses, because the estates around them were so large. With room for horses, helicopter landing pads, eight garages for one house. I hadn’t even known we had people this rich around. Now I’m imagining that same group of people I was protesting with going around those houses, counting the rooms, arranging housing for every single homeless person in the city. It would feel so good!