It wasn't just a decriminalisation streak. During the early Soviet years there was a wide-ranging LGBT debate and multiple efforts to develop LGBT research and services, especially from the Constructivist/Cosmist factions.
Even the decriminalisation wasn't just a sweeping reform, since they deliberately didn't put the law back in with their new legal code. This pamphlet shows the opinion of the progressive factions of the SU on what the law reform meant (slight cringe anti ML stuff from the guy in the intro)
Finally, several prominent Bolshevik leaders were LGBT, most notably Georgy Chicherin the first Foreign Minister of the SU and a close associate of Stalin.
Unfortunately, open LGBT people were widely associated not just with the upper classes but those close to the Tsar (since those were the only people powerful enough to be openly gay). Even though much of the peasantry was openly gay, the proletariat was very conservative due to the 18th century francophile reforms, the Tsar had had some of the strictest anti- LGBT laws ever (including anti-lesbian laws, which were quite rare elsewhere) and authors like Tolstoy using gay characters to illustrate corruption and decadence didn't help. Nor did the prejudice of some of the Soviet Leaders. Finally, we need to remember that Gay people were not separated from paedophiles in many people's heads, and it suited the conservative factions to keep it that way.
Ultimately the debate fell on the side of LGBT being a mental illness and it was recriminalised, but it was a halting step forwards for the time.
It wasn't just a decriminalisation streak. During the early Soviet years there was a wide-ranging LGBT debate and multiple efforts to develop LGBT research and services, especially from the Constructivist/Cosmist factions.
Even the decriminalisation wasn't just a sweeping reform, since they deliberately didn't put the law back in with their new legal code. This pamphlet shows the opinion of the progressive factions of the SU on what the law reform meant (slight cringe anti ML stuff from the guy in the intro)
Finally, several prominent Bolshevik leaders were LGBT, most notably Georgy Chicherin the first Foreign Minister of the SU and a close associate of Stalin.
Unfortunately, open LGBT people were widely associated not just with the upper classes but those close to the Tsar (since those were the only people powerful enough to be openly gay). Even though much of the peasantry was openly gay, the proletariat was very conservative due to the 18th century francophile reforms, the Tsar had had some of the strictest anti- LGBT laws ever (including anti-lesbian laws, which were quite rare elsewhere) and authors like Tolstoy using gay characters to illustrate corruption and decadence didn't help. Nor did the prejudice of some of the Soviet Leaders. Finally, we need to remember that Gay people were not separated from paedophiles in many people's heads, and it suited the conservative factions to keep it that way.
Ultimately the debate fell on the side of LGBT being a mental illness and it was recriminalised, but it was a halting step forwards for the time.
@Archivist