Yeah good read on this but it should be said the period of time where being gay was decriminalized in the USSR did last about a decade, and in that time period LGBT+ people where actually left alone for the most part. I always read this time period of one of knowing tolerance by the upper soviet leadership, as they likely did not act on it because they actually did want lgbt issues to be decriminalized. I am making this assumption due to the slow pace they moved on this topic and that they where an educated class who could read; it was them having to contend with Stalin being a orthdox christian (he was literally born in a manger to a priests family) and 99% of Russia also being this, they had to make populist concessions in the 30s in order to recover from famines.
I traced Russias lgbt+ phobic outlook to the implementation of the Tsar; prior to this in pre-monarchy Russia it was noted by many historians and accounts that the Russian people where openly gay, lesbian and poly; it was the monarchy that implemented orthodox theocratic teachings in order to secure better trade deals with the christian west, and then beaten into them over 500 years.
I know Stalin was Christian at one point, even studying at a seminary to become a priest, but was he still Christian by the time he was general secretary?
Yeah reading more into the struggles the USSR had with the orthodox church you're right to say that Stalin 100% ditched this outlook by the 1930s as he was calling for state athiesm in the 1930s and kept trying to purge the 'reactionary' orthdox church members from positions of infulence.
I am wrong to say that the direction of this was because of fears of Stalins orthodoxy, my mistake.
The key thing though to take away was, that he mostly failed; Russia was just that much orthodox. The key points where how he made concessions like recriminalizing abortion in the 1930s; not a position he likely would have wanted to do due to his ideological position, but one he had to do to maintain a cohesive country.
Yeah good read on this but it should be said the period of time where being gay was decriminalized in the USSR did last about a decade, and in that time period LGBT+ people where actually left alone for the most part. I always read this time period of one of knowing tolerance by the upper soviet leadership, as they likely did not act on it because they actually did want lgbt issues to be decriminalized. I am making this assumption due to the slow pace they moved on this topic and that they where an educated class who could read; it was them having to contend with Stalin being a orthdox christian (he was literally born in a manger to a priests family) and 99% of Russia also being this, they had to make populist concessions in the 30s in order to recover from famines.
I traced Russias lgbt+ phobic outlook to the implementation of the Tsar; prior to this in pre-monarchy Russia it was noted by many historians and accounts that the Russian people where openly gay, lesbian and poly; it was the monarchy that implemented orthodox theocratic teachings in order to secure better trade deals with the christian west, and then beaten into them over 500 years.
I know Stalin was Christian at one point, even studying at a seminary to become a priest, but was he still Christian by the time he was general secretary?
Yeah reading more into the struggles the USSR had with the orthodox church you're right to say that Stalin 100% ditched this outlook by the 1930s as he was calling for state athiesm in the 1930s and kept trying to purge the 'reactionary' orthdox church members from positions of infulence.
I am wrong to say that the direction of this was because of fears of Stalins orthodoxy, my mistake.
The key thing though to take away was, that he mostly failed; Russia was just that much orthodox. The key points where how he made concessions like recriminalizing abortion in the 1930s; not a position he likely would have wanted to do due to his ideological position, but one he had to do to maintain a cohesive country.