Have a scroll.

I'm not playing this stupid word game where it's only dictatorship if it's from the dictateur region of France, and any micron short of literal absolute power means it doesn't count. Ask any normal person to define dictatorship and they'll name all the shit you already said Stalin did. The mechanics of his inner party don't fucking matter. They don't change the effect. When a king has viziers and vassals and so on, and needs them to enact his next pogrom, that's still absolute monarchy. "The riddle of steel" doesn't make Charlemagne a respected bipartisan official. Dude owned a country.

You will almost never see someone describe their worship of that hierarchy, because they don't understand there's any alternative. It's like saying things should obey gravity. But it is visibly the ideology shared by a shockingly broad variety of bootlickers. It's what every Republican twat is saying, when their defense of The Idiot's abuse of power is, 'but he had that power!' Listen to those people. They are telling you how they think. They don't understand power can be abused. It is a contradiction, in their worldview. Either a figure has that power, and can use it however they see fit - or they do not deserve power in the first place. There's no third option. This is every aggravating non-argument you've had with Elon Musk fanboys who think disagreeing with him means you have to be smarter and richer and less bald.