General Discussion

The mistake was when the leaders that came after decided to never cede power back to the working class.

Unfortunately I see this as a permanent road block because we can't rid ourselves of the worst kinds of people, they're just born psychopaths/sociopaths and seek positions of power to exploit :(

I have a new working theory. We reward assholes and no system we can ever hope for will ever overcome the asshole engorgement paradox therefore all systems will always turn to shit.

Certainly Lenin and good compatriots has the best of intentions with their vanguard approach to intention. But, as you noted, that concentration of power ultimately corrupted in the hands of a nefarious few. These ideas were not Lenin's alone and even Marx promoted the idea of a Vanguard long before the Bolshevik revolution, which Bakunin (an early anarchist) was opposed due to the likelihood of the vanguard becoming entrenched within that power. That concentration of power by a class of elite was the mistake. To argue there wasn't time to educate the masses is to ignore the fallout of that approach. These are important lessons to remember, even should the future approach to revolution be focused on the establishment of worker co-ops. Positions of power and power between cooperatives are likely to remain and we will need systems of control to mediate these types of emergent hierarchies.

Lenin's concept of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was intended to be a temporary system intended on rapid development and growth of the economy. It was more important to try and stop starvation and establish railroads than build worker co-ops. The mistake was when the leaders that came after decided to never cede power back to the working class.

Marx came up with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, not Lenin, and it didn't mean Dictatorship over the Proletariat, but of the Proletariat, as a contrast to the Capitalist Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.

The DotP is not to stop starvation or anything, it's to protect against the resurgance of Capitalism. It additionally wasn't meant to be "ceded back to the working class," but become unnecessary as the mechanisms for Capitalism to come back were erased.

Neither Marx nor Lenin were advocating for literal modern conceptions of dictatorship, but consolidating all power away from the bourgeoisie and into the hands of the Proletariat.