The People's Stick is a political metaphor by 19th-century Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, and used in his 1873 work Statism and Anarchy.
The full quote states: When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick".
The phrase is widely cited by Noam Chomsky; other scholars have also noted the phrase as emblematic of the inherent oppressiveness of a state power, even in a nominally socialist government.
References
The People's Stick Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA