Marxists always were against reactionary positions. One of the oldest was of course the liberation of women. “The woman and socialism” by August Bebel is an absolute perfect read for this and often enough the origin of clichés about women and men are explained there and else the background for this.
Also looking a the young soviet state, were being gay was not criminalised. There were so many debates at this time about sexuality. And following the marxists theory till this day, it is fully supportive regarding rights for LGBTQ.
You can’t be a communists if you don’t support or ignore the problems of LGBTQ people and other struggling people. This is simply self evident and if someone doesn’t think so, then there is a big lack of theory.
But fighting for the rights of women and LGTBQ without a socialist perspective won’t bring any liberation. The Bourgeoisie will always attack those rights and demands and a non-binary person bombing Syria in a F16 will be presented as a step forward acceptance of LGBTQ.
Also looking a the young soviet state, were being gay was not criminalised.
I have heard it said that this was basically a fluke, seeing as the Soviet struck off all the Tsarist laws before enacting their own legal code. Decriminalising being gay was basically something that slipped through the cracks, which is why it was eventually re-criminalised.
(To be clear I still stan the USSR, just something worth pointing out. I don’t think this particular development represents a theory of queer liberation amongst the bolsheviks or such. They certainly weren’t writing about such things.)
Doing some brief digging, you’re right, it wasn’t just an oversight. Which actually makes it much worse that it was re-criminalised as it wasn’t just a matter of re-affirming established legal code, but an actual regression in social policy.
The criminalizsation was put to an and in the year 1922. Re-criminalised again in the year 1934. If it was fluke then it wouldn’t take 12 years to criminalise it again.
At this time there were important figures like Maxim Gorki, which were homophobic and agitated against homosexuality. It was self evident for a Marxist, at the time of the revolution and before, that the state doesn’t have to control sexuality. Also it was clear which role sexuality had looking at the liberation of women.
Gay and Lesbian people hadn’t it easy in the 20s, because the environment still was not friendly (years of tsarism and religion had its influence). But there were no justification to criminalise homosexuality, because the law was absolutely influenced by Marxism and therefore the law could not criminalise something that aligned with it.
As I said, it changed later in the 30s. Gorki himself wrote stuff like that homosexuality goes against socialism and and an.
But one thing is not true (something you can read also here quite often), that homosexuality was criminalised again because such views were “normal” at this time and everybody did it. Look how abortion and divorce was widely accessable, but it drastically changed in the same time when homosexuality was criminalised. Abortion was drastically restricted and also getting divorced was not that easy then before (Look at the laws in the year 1944). There was a clear trend for all this sadly.
Gay liberation wasn’t at the forefront of Bolshevik political discussions but there’s a bit more to it. Gay people existed, and both decriminalisation and subsequent recriminalisation had significant effect on their lives, which some of them were pretty vocal about.
The articles below are not from ML perspective but still worth a read:
Marxists always were against reactionary positions. One of the oldest was of course the liberation of women. “The woman and socialism” by August Bebel is an absolute perfect read for this and often enough the origin of clichés about women and men are explained there and else the background for this.
Also looking a the young soviet state, were being gay was not criminalised. There were so many debates at this time about sexuality. And following the marxists theory till this day, it is fully supportive regarding rights for LGBTQ.
You can’t be a communists if you don’t support or ignore the problems of LGBTQ people and other struggling people. This is simply self evident and if someone doesn’t think so, then there is a big lack of theory.
But fighting for the rights of women and LGTBQ without a socialist perspective won’t bring any liberation. The Bourgeoisie will always attack those rights and demands and a non-binary person bombing Syria in a F16 will be presented as a step forward acceptance of LGBTQ.
I have heard it said that this was basically a fluke, seeing as the Soviet struck off all the Tsarist laws before enacting their own legal code. Decriminalising being gay was basically something that slipped through the cracks, which is why it was eventually re-criminalised.
(To be clear I still stan the USSR, just something worth pointing out. I don’t think this particular development represents a theory of queer liberation amongst the bolsheviks or such. They certainly weren’t writing about such things.)
It wasn’t a fluke. The USSR didn’t decriminalize everything though, and didn’t abolish all of the tsarist-era laws.
Doing some brief digging, you’re right, it wasn’t just an oversight. Which actually makes it much worse that it was re-criminalised as it wasn’t just a matter of re-affirming established legal code, but an actual regression in social policy.
The criminalizsation was put to an and in the year 1922. Re-criminalised again in the year 1934. If it was fluke then it wouldn’t take 12 years to criminalise it again.
At this time there were important figures like Maxim Gorki, which were homophobic and agitated against homosexuality. It was self evident for a Marxist, at the time of the revolution and before, that the state doesn’t have to control sexuality. Also it was clear which role sexuality had looking at the liberation of women.
Gay and Lesbian people hadn’t it easy in the 20s, because the environment still was not friendly (years of tsarism and religion had its influence). But there were no justification to criminalise homosexuality, because the law was absolutely influenced by Marxism and therefore the law could not criminalise something that aligned with it.
As I said, it changed later in the 30s. Gorki himself wrote stuff like that homosexuality goes against socialism and and an.
But one thing is not true (something you can read also here quite often), that homosexuality was criminalised again because such views were “normal” at this time and everybody did it. Look how abortion and divorce was widely accessable, but it drastically changed in the same time when homosexuality was criminalised. Abortion was drastically restricted and also getting divorced was not that easy then before (Look at the laws in the year 1944). There was a clear trend for all this sadly.
Gay liberation wasn’t at the forefront of Bolshevik political discussions but there’s a bit more to it. Gay people existed, and both decriminalisation and subsequent recriminalisation had significant effect on their lives, which some of them were pretty vocal about.
The articles below are not from ML perspective but still worth a read:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41737330
https://marxist.com/letter-to-stalin-can-a-homosexual-be-in-the-communist-party.htm
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/interview-with-ira-roldugina/