In theory the workers did not have full control over the means of production because they could not sell them or destroy them but as far as using them - there was no dictator standing next to every lathe or tractor and telling them what to do. This mainly resulted in people stealing shit from their workplaces though. Few Russian sayings from that period:

Все вокруг колхозное, все вокруг мое (Everything around me belongs to the collective farm, everything is mine)

Тащи с работы каждый гвоздь, ты здесь хозяин, а не гость (Steal every last nail from work, you are the master here, not a guest).

How do you suggest accomplishing a massive redistribution of wealth without a state ("dictatorship of the proletariat")?

If owning & profiting from capital is impossible, what incentive is there to produce capital - it will just get seized. Where's the marketplace for capital, or does the state have a monopsony on capital purchases?

My poiny exactly. Giving too much power to the state would only turn it into a dictatorship (even if it's a tax dictatorship) for the ones in power will eventually sieze that power for themselves.

Shared ownership of production means is possible w/o a nanny state if the shareholders of a private company are also it's employees. But that doesn't really work well in practice, otherwise we would have cooperatives comparable to Apple, Google, VW or Samsung in terms of market value. I haven't seen any.

The safety net you're talking about could be group insurance policies negotiated by the said company. But why do this, when the same company could automate and greatly reduce expenses with insurance and health benefits paid to human workers? The purpose of a company is to maximize the profit for it's shareholders (by creating market value), as opposed to being a benefactor for it's employees. Of course, we also have a social responsability component but that's only because few people would work for an organization that would rip them off.