Lenin wasn’t trying to erase that transition to communism is gradual, but instead correctly identified that the beginning of that transition is revolution, which Marxists at the time had erased from Marx. Dialectical materialism posits that there are revolutionary leaps after quantitative buildups, the transition to socialism is the beginning of the next long gradual process of achieving communism. He did not “force it under authoritarian boot heel,” but instead was the leader of the bolsheviks, a mass party chosen by the working claases.

Contrary to your position, Marxism-Leninism has successfully established socialism in many countries, and is so widely adopted by leftists partially because of its practical success. It’s the western leftists that endlessly move goalposts to invalidate socialism outside the west that results in perpetuation of bourgeois narratives surrounding socialism as it exists in real life.

Honestly, your appraisal of Lenin and Marx makes it come off as though you haven’t actually read either. Have you?