You need to manage a manager like that - as others have said, get everything in writing that you can, write everything down that he tells you, and be the picture of absolute wide-eyed innocence when you sit down with him and try to figure out where the “communication problems” have developed (hint: they’re all YOUR fault - “I’m sorry, I just don’t seem to be able to understand this process. Is there a manual or something?”). If that doesn’t work, look for a new job. 
Best look for the job right away. Any manager with enough strategic imagination not to tie his own shoes together in the morning will be very aware that he is being “managed,” and will see right through your phony “my fault” pose.
Don’t push this type. They don’t want things to work better or communication to improve; they want every advantage over their people they can hold on to, and will make things very ugly for those who don’t play along.
As I said earlier, it’s called management. Real-world style.
Only true if you are ‘not very bright’ yourself.
If you have a manager that is a doofus there are ways to manage him/her. Do you really think that the people at the top of companies all got there without encountering useless or malevolent superiors along the way? Of course not. But they used their various skill to manage these people into insignificance.
Of course, this won’t work in all circumstances - if, for example, your bosses boss is the owner of the company and you boss is related to him/her.
Then again, if you can’t work out how to manage managers yourself it’s pretty dangerous to allow someone on a forum to do it by ‘remote control’ using you as the tool.
Well really, with this type, you have to be straight out gunshy and direct.
“We seem to have some issues with me doing things the way you want them to be done, and I want to correct that. So before I do task X, I want you to tell me EXACTLY how you want this to be done.”
If the answer is some crap about how you should know how to do your job, the best answer is some form of “I believe I do, but I don’t believe that you think I do. So to avoid any more conflict, I’d like you to tell me how you would like this to be done so that we don’t have any more issues with me doing things in a way you feel is incorrect.”
Of course, I’m a big enough asshole that if they keep refusing to tell me, my next answer would be “Ok, but remember that I specifically asked you more than once, and you refused to tell me how you wanted it done. So if, after the fact, you don’t like how it was done, you should probably reconsider the possibility that the problem is me.” It’s also something you can bring to their boss; “I keep asking how he wants me to do things, he refuses to tell me, then he yells at me for not doing it properly. It is very difficult to meet expectations when my boss refuses to tell me what those expectations are.”
Be careful with the term “constructive dismissal” (or similar), as it may not mean the same thing in all jurisdictions. For example, based on the facts I read in the OP’s situation, I’d agree that “bullying” is the case, but those same facts do not make out a constructive dismissal as it is defined in my jurisdiction. They might in others, however.
The point is, that if the worker described in the OP decides to bring an action of any sort, he should first make sure of the terms he is using, and what they mean locally.
You would think so, but I have never yet been busted on managing a manager. Course, I’m old enough to be their mother these days, and have been in my field for 14 years, and I don’t do it much. The goal isn’t to get them to communicate better or fix this situation - it’s to get YOUR ass covered. See, you did everything you could to make things better, and you did it on record.
But it could be hysterically funny for us.
You have 14 years experience. I have a deep and abiding faith in humans’ ability to be evil and stupid whenever it suits their interests in the near term. It balances out. 
Oh, I’ll join you in that.
This is the danger of conflating legal terms with lay usage of those same terms. (See, e.g., ‘rational basis test.’)
A hostile work environment that is hostile based on sexual impropriety gives the aggrieved worker a legal remedy under Title VII.
A hostile work environment that derives its hostility from a bullying or jerkish manager may be fairly described as ‘hostile,’ yes, but there are no remedies under federal law.
You are obviously correct about this. It was explained to me by someone that does understand it, but I must have either tuned out or forgot the “protected class” part of it.
I was in a meeting once when someone asked, about one of my team members, “Are we coaching him IN, or coaching him OUT?” I was young and naive and stunned that anyone would do such a thing.
I was not quite young and naive enough to have forgotten about that question when the process was begun on me about a year later. “Coaching her out” did work on me, but my life is about a thousand percent better than it was then, so I don’t really mind.