Thanks so much for linking that it was a very interesting read.
This paragraph was pretty sad:
I visited two psychiatrists in the search for an answer to the question of whether it was possible to “cure” homosexuality — perhaps you will find this surprising. I admit that this was opportunism on my part (this time, perhaps, it can be forgiven), but I was incited to do this by the desire to find some kind of solution to this cursed dilemma. Least of all did I want to contradict the decision of the Soviet government. I was prepared to do anything if only to avoid the necessity of finding myself in contradiction with Soviet law. I took this step despite the fact that I did not know whether contemporary researchers had succeeded in establishing the true nature of homosexuality and the possibility of converting homosexuals into heterosexuals — that is, into people who engage in the sexual act only with members of the opposite sex. If such a possibility were in fact established, then everything would be much simpler of course.
I simply see no rational justification whatsoever for criminalising homosexuality. Even if you thought it was a mental disorder, you don't put people with schitzophrenia in jail.
I'm just honestly at a complete loss as to why the Soviets decided this was a good idea.
for the same reason people are for the criminalization of drug use and the buying of drugs while still believing drug addiction is a disease. people don't necessarily have coherent beliefs.
(it was already recriminalized by the individual SSRs years earlier, stalin's move was a mere formality, did you really think a country filled with conservative Christians, Muslims, and Jews needed stalin to force them to oppose homosexuality, rather than him making a popular democratic concession?)
Not all of the SSRs had it criminalised. Only Azerbaijan and the Central asian ones IIRC. And even still it was completely the wrong thing to do. You should have educated them instead of pandering to their reactionary views.
Many of those conservative people aren't going to be all that open-minded to what you have to say after all much effort has been out toward releasing their religious practices. I'll admit that I'm not super well informed on this (yet), but understanding was that the USSR caused a lot of issues for itself with it's attitudes toward religion (or at least the handling of it).
Edit: to clarify, I'd have rather seen a more lenient approach to religious practices, so that the political capital could be better spent on things like preventing the actual oppression of LGBT people. Saying "well he should have just done the right thing" is overly simplistic, but my understanding of Stalin is that this was a shortcomings of his leadership in general (though he had his strengths)
You can say that the party appealed to popular opinion but they made no effort whatsoever to change it. Homosexuality remained illegal and taboo in Soviet society until 1991, after which pretty much every Western country had decriminalised. Hell, the Warsaw pact states decriminalised it too.
The uncomforatble truth is that the soviet leadership was either actually homophobic or didn't care about gay people, or both.
Yeah I guess they should have done no progressive reforms whatsoever, spend no time at all building socialism and just dump everything into building tanks, guns and planes.
They did exactly that, for the Jews and others, getting mad at them for not being progressive enough when they were already the most progressive country in the world is radlib bullshit
They didn't even mean to decriminalize it in the first place, which is why it was almost immediately recriminalized in some places and longer in others.
Of course a trotskyite website would fucking lie about this issue.
Reality check, in 1922, the Communist Revolutionaries abolished the book of TSARIST LAWS as the law of the land and started rewriting laws for the proletarian state from the ground up.
This does not mean homosexuality was legalized in the RSFR, it means the laws that declared homosexuality illegal, along with all other tsarist laws were abolished as they were bougeoise laws.
THIS IS NOT defending the legal decision reached by the Presidium of the USSR that Stalin was the General Secretary of in 1934.
This is pointing out the historical reality of the fact that Trotskyite wreckers lie about everything to make themselves look good.
In the Communist Party itself during this period of the 1920s, such divergences of opinion and policy on Soviet treatment of homosexuality was also common, ranging from positive, to negative, to ambivalent over views about homosexuals and homosexual rights. Some sections and factions of the Bolshevik government attempted to improve rights and social conditions for homosexuals based on further legal reforms in 1922 and 1923 while others opposed such moves. In the early 1920s, Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko for example was sympathetic to homosexual emancipation "as part of the [sexual] revolution" and attempted such reforms for homosexual rights in the area of civil and medical areas. According to Wayne R. Dynes, some sections of the Bolsheviks of the 1920s actively considered homosexuality a "[social] illness to be cured" or an example of "bourgeois degeneracy" while other Bolsheviks believed it should be legally/socially tolerated and legally/socially respected in the new socialist society.
The Bolsheviks also rescinded Tzarist legal bans on homosexual civil and political rights, especially in the area of state employment. In 1918, Georgy Chicherin, an openly homosexual man, was appointed as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR. In 1923, Chicherin was also appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, a position he held until 1930.
Women’s rights were very advanced after the revolution until Stalin.
Ah yes, "Everything I disagree with is antisemetic"
National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.
Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism.
In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.
Somewhat misleading, since he started serving under Lenin; continued working until illness prevented it in 1928, then retired in 1930, and died in 1936 at age 63.
So he was no longer working in that position when homosexuality was re-criminalized in 1934.
via marxist.com:
So fucking typical that a child molester would be the one to make that decision.
synthesis.png
Also remember that Harry Whyte, a Scottish Communist living in the USSR at the time, wrote to Stalin in prostest at the new law.
Stalin dismissed his letter and called him "an idiot and a degenerate".
Thanks so much for linking that it was a very interesting read.
This paragraph was pretty sad:
I suggest people read the whole thing.
I like the way he signed the letter:
Communist Greetings,
Electric Monk
I simply see no rational justification whatsoever for criminalising homosexuality. Even if you thought it was a mental disorder, you don't put people with schitzophrenia in jail.
I'm just honestly at a complete loss as to why the Soviets decided this was a good idea.
for the same reason people are for the criminalization of drug use and the buying of drugs while still believing drug addiction is a disease. people don't necessarily have coherent beliefs.
(it was already recriminalized by the individual SSRs years earlier, stalin's move was a mere formality, did you really think a country filled with conservative Christians, Muslims, and Jews needed stalin to force them to oppose homosexuality, rather than him making a popular democratic concession?)
Not all of the SSRs had it criminalised. Only Azerbaijan and the Central asian ones IIRC. And even still it was completely the wrong thing to do. You should have educated them instead of pandering to their reactionary views.
Many of those conservative people aren't going to be all that open-minded to what you have to say after all much effort has been out toward releasing their religious practices. I'll admit that I'm not super well informed on this (yet), but understanding was that the USSR caused a lot of issues for itself with it's attitudes toward religion (or at least the handling of it).
Edit: to clarify, I'd have rather seen a more lenient approach to religious practices, so that the political capital could be better spent on things like preventing the actual oppression of LGBT people. Saying "well he should have just done the right thing" is overly simplistic, but my understanding of Stalin is that this was a shortcomings of his leadership in general (though he had his strengths)
A land of contrasts and all that
You can say that the party appealed to popular opinion but they made no effort whatsoever to change it. Homosexuality remained illegal and taboo in Soviet society until 1991, after which pretty much every Western country had decriminalised. Hell, the Warsaw pact states decriminalised it too.
The uncomforatble truth is that the soviet leadership was either actually homophobic or didn't care about gay people, or both.
He should have split the country over sex while preparing for the next invasion?
Yeah I guess they should have done no progressive reforms whatsoever, spend no time at all building socialism and just dump everything into building tanks, guns and planes.
They did exactly that, for the Jews and others, getting mad at them for not being progressive enough when they were already the most progressive country in the world is radlib bullshit
No it is not radlib to get mad at them for regressing on a progressive policies.
Remove your rose tinted glasses, stop trying to make it seem like any criticism is unjustified.
They didn't even mean to decriminalize it in the first place, which is why it was almost immediately recriminalized in some places and longer in others.
"why is the state cutting down individuality to fit the collective, I don't get it"
Of course a trotskyite website would fucking lie about this issue.
Reality check, in 1922, the Communist Revolutionaries abolished the book of TSARIST LAWS as the law of the land and started rewriting laws for the proletarian state from the ground up.
This does not mean homosexuality was legalized in the RSFR, it means the laws that declared homosexuality illegal, along with all other tsarist laws were abolished as they were bougeoise laws.
THIS IS NOT defending the legal decision reached by the Presidium of the USSR that Stalin was the General Secretary of in 1934.
This is pointing out the historical reality of the fact that Trotskyite wreckers lie about everything to make themselves look good.
Women’s rights were very advanced after the revolution until Stalin.
Abolishing laws that make something illegal means that thing is no longer illegal
you know you're reading an anti-Stalin thread when the anti-semetic screeching starts
Ah yes, "Everything I disagree with is antisemetic"
Get fucked race-baiting chud.
Thank you. Came here to say this.
The first openly gay cabinet level official in Europe served under Stalin, chicherin
Somewhat misleading, since he started serving under Lenin; continued working until illness prevented it in 1928, then retired in 1930, and died in 1936 at age 63.
So he was no longer working in that position when homosexuality was re-criminalized in 1934.
Why do you think Stalin allowed the country and himself to be represented by an openly gay guy in the 1920s if he was coming for them?