this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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The first decriminalization of homosexuality in an industrialized nation occurred when Lenin legislated it in the newly formed Soviet Union. Stalin eventually rolled it back unfortunately but for a bit more than a decade you could essentially be freely homosexual in the same time period that you could watch a new black and white movie.
EDIT: Thanks to a heads-up from one of our comrades, I realized that one of my statements was unintentionally reactionary. It has since been removed and they have my thanks.
when Lenin legislated
I get why people talk about this in this way, but I think it's a mistake to ascribe intent to this when the decriminalization was a by product of doing away with the Tsarist legal code entirely. There are other instances of socialist states actively pursuing a policy in the direction of queer liberation (earlier and more comprehensive than even modern Western states), such as the GDR in the 80's and Cuba with their new constitution, but unfortunately the Soviet Union was not one of them.
While this is true, as far as I know, it still led to less persecution because there wasn't a legal framework for such thing, so I guess worst case scenario it was fortunate happenstance.
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.
That doesn't match with my readings of the history. Here is a larger article about it. I've also heard mention of a soviet delegation to the famous LGBT clinic in Germany. That wouldn't indicate that it was an oversight either.
Regardless, even under Stalin, I don't think the Soviet Union was demonstrably worse than the west in queer rights . The Soviets didn't reimprison prisoners with pink triangles liberated from concentration camps for example.
Wait, did the other Allies do this??
Yes. Sorry, best source I could find in the time available. But it's true and well documented. West Germany specifically, although other western countries weren't great either.
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I keep seeing the argument that the USSR decriminalizing homosexuality as being a by-product of getting rid of the Tsarist legal system, and while I could very well be wrong, and that may have played a part, I don't buy it at face value. The USSR didn't get rid of every single Tsarist vestige for the sake of it, such as the reprisal of the Gulag system. I think decriminalizing homosexuality was a concerted effort.
"But dead Nazis have a cost"
I cannot wrap my head around this, comrade. Stalin being a strong military leader doesn't necessitate his occasionally reactionary view on sexuality and gender. Of course we should all uphold Stalin's legacy, but that doesn't mean making excuses for him when he's wrong.
This is fair, comrade, and an opportunity for me to purge my own internal reactionary. I think I was perhaps hasty in my writing trying to recognize the achievements of Lenin that I glossed over the failings of Stalin and the larger recognition that sometimes in times of crisis we're more forgiving of flaws that we would hold to greater account in times of peace.
in the same time period that you could watch a new black and white movie.
that's every decade since the invention of black and white movies
Admittedly true, but new ones have been pretty rare for a while. Maybe I should have said something along the lines of color movies not being available.
I've seen said (but have not investigated whatsoever so please take this with a grain of salt) that although it was criminalized it was rarely enforced because there was a duty to demonstrate the social harm of a specific action and that was rarely "met" in court or something to that effect. Is there any truth in this or is it just cope?
when fascists say "so and so revolutionary movement will have you degenerates imprisoned and killed" they're not doing so out of concern. it's a mutually-suicidal curse directed outwards by those who will never be happy, and don't want anybody else to realize their true potential either.
Libs say this sort of stuff as well, because they can't accept that there are people to the left of them. It actually happened on this very website when a lib lemmy instance we were federated with accused us of being fake queers, because many of us are both trans and tankies.
Upvote for not only a poignant statement comrade, but also because your username appears to be a reference to a great book by Kristen Ghodsee, yes?
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Oh hey, I think that's the communist party of Ireland
Surprised the libs haven't started spreading lies about throwing trans people into conversion camps yet.
Hell, there are trans celebrities such as 金星 or popular uploaders on sites like Bilibili.
Libs: ebil commies are forcibly converting trans people in camps
Chuds: ebil commies are forcibly converting people to trans in camps
Yet again, schrodinger commies and Parenti quote
We're gonna trans all the cis and cis all the trans people!
And when they get used to that, we're gonna do it again!
And we're gonna sneak into people's houses at night, and wreck up the place!
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The quote
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
-- Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds
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trans celebrities such as 金星
Wait, the planet Venus is trans?
Based Venus is a comrade in the struggle for trans rights 🦄
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Tankie either refers to anyone to the left of Trump, or very specifically the LaRouche movement, depending on what's most convenient.
Make tankie mean pro-Soviet intervention against reactionary Hungarian colour revolution again.
Liberal reading your comment:
Make … again
MAGA communism tankie! 
No it doesn’t, I’ve only heard radlibs use it and it was against any supporters of AES. Originally it was used for people in Britain who supported Khrushchev’s intervention in Hungary, but since has been expanded on the internet.
How did I go my whole life thinking Stalin did the intervention in Hungary?
That's the anti-Stalin paradigm at work. Everything you've been told was bad about the USSR was down to Stalin.
Idk, it happened after Stalin’s death. How long have you known about it? (“My whole life”)
Lol. It would make sense for the term to be more mainstream in the UK considering it’s from there. Basically, they are trying to associate Corbyn with people like us who would have supported the Soviet intervention, which is a stretch.
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