Re: the next wedge issue

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Melvin wrote:
> I maintain that at this juncture of history homosexuality is propagated by
> the bourgeois and part of the decay and degeneracy in society.

The Bolsheviks were outspoken supporters of gay rights. Not only did
the Soviet Union abolish all laws against homosexual acts in December,
1917, it also promoted a vision that the gay movement would described
in the slogan "Gay is just as good as straight.". This was viewed as
consistent with the emancipatory vision of the world's first socialist
revolution.

Dr. Grigorii Batkis, the Director of the Moscow Institute of Social
Hygeine, published a pamphlet titled "The Sexual Revolution in Russia"
in 1923 and attended the pro-gay World League for Sexual Freedom
congresses in an official capacity, where he offered the support of
the new revolutionary government. The pamphlet stated:

"The relationship of Soviet law to the sexual sphere is based on the
principle that the demands of the vast majority of the people
correspond to and are in harmony with the findings of contemporary
science...

"Now by taking into account all these aspects of the transition
period, Soviet legislation bases itself on the following principle: it
declares that the absolute non-interference of the state and society
into sexual matters, as long as nobody is injured, and no one's
interests are encroached upon."

And just to make things crystal clear, it also states that "Concerning
homosexuality, sodomy, and various other forms of sexual
gratification, which are set down in European legislation as offenses
against public morality--Soviet legislation treats these THE SAME AS
so-called 'natural' intercourse."

Let me repeat this with emphasis: the Soviet government did not view
same-sex relations as being in any way *sick* or *perverted*. It did
not promote homosexuality, nor did it condemn it. This is all a
revolutionary government is expected to do. Furthermore, this is all
the gay liberation movement has ever fought for in capitalist society.

All this changed after Stalin took power. His policies are the same
that are favored by Maoists and some Trotskyists unfortunately. After
1931, the ruling circles began to develop a whole mythology in which
homosexuality was "the product of decadence in the bourgeois sector of
society" and "the fascist perversion". The notion that homosexuality
is unnatural belongs to Stalinism, not Bolshevism.



Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org