Lenin also critiques the use of the term "people's state" for this reason though, "The 'free people's state' was a programme demand and a catchword current among the German Social-Democrats in the seventies. this catchword is devoid of all political content except that it describes the concept of democracy in a pompous philistine fashion. Insofar as it hinted in a legally permissible manner at a democratic republic, Engels was prepared to “justify” its use “for a time” from an agitational point of view. But it was an opportunist catchword, for it amounted to something more than prettifying bourgeois democracy, and was also a failure to understand the socialist criticism of the state in general. We are in favor of a democratic republic as the best form of state for the proletariat under capitalism. But we have no right to forget that wage slavery is the lot of the people even in the most democratic bourgeois republic. Furthermore, every state is a 'special force' for the suppression of the oppressed class. Consequently, every state is not 'free' and not a 'people's state'. Marx and Engels explained this repeatedly to their party comrades in the seventies." ( The State and Revolution , p. 16). Lenin is saying the term people's state is ridiculous because the state is a machine for suppressing a certain class at the whim of the other, thus it cannot represent the whole of the people. That's why I included the Mao quote in the original comment, because that definition of the people is specific to SWCC. Can't find the quote from Lenin also but he defines the DOTP as a union between the petty-bourgeoisie, peasantry, and proletariat, with the latter at the head, for the purpose of suppressing the total bourgeois elements. Also in a lot of the Black Panther Party's rhetoric, speeches by leaders, and so on, they use the term "people" to mean proletariat.