What Happened When a Gay Communist Wrote to Stal

Contents:

• THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT AND GAY RIGHTS: THE HIDN HISTORY
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A GAY COMMUNIST WROTE TO STAL
• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT AND GAY RIGHTS: THE HIDN HISTORY

In the last year, the Cuban health mistry unfurled an enormo rabow flag to mark Internatnal Day Agast Homophobia, and former print Raúl Castro clared that nontg homophobia remaed one of the ernment’s chief some Amerins, the velopments might seem to fly the face of the untry’s munist history.

When gay activists began to anize the 1980s munist Poland, the ernment cracked down a mass actn known as Operatn Hyacth, probably fearful of what perceived as anized ristance to the other munist untri, queer people ma remarkable stris. East Germany reverted to a far ls strgent versn, drawg on the German Communist Party’s historic support for difference was strikg; while Wt Germany nvicted over 50, 000 men between 1949 and 1969 of homosexualy, East Germany nvicted only a ty actn of that number. In her memoir, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, perhaps the most famo trans woman German history, remembered gog to lively hoe parti Berl full of queer East the 1970s, a group of gay men and lbians began to meet East Berl, termed to rve out a public space for themselv.

The group was largely unsuccsful, as the ernment remaed skeptil of the need for such public the 1980s, other gay and lbian activists began anizg unr the spic of the Prottant Church, the only nomally pennt anizatn the untry.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

It did so, part, bee activists had been adamant about amg their requts terms of the needs of socialism, emphasizg that creatg greater opportuni for queer East Germans would only strengthen their mment to short orr, the dictatorship promulgated a slew of liberal polici, om allowg queer people to serve the ary to equalizg the age of nsent to missng new books and movi about homosexualy.

Burecrats and policians argued that dog so would strengthen socialist society by better tegratg queer people to and dismantlg social a rult, the 1980s were a tly remarkable time for queer East Germans, what one of my terview partners lled “the most betiful gay time. That might sound like a big claim to make, but was Communist iology and polil strategy that provid the theoretil and practil archecture of the earlit effort to w gay equaly the Uned Stat—the Mattache Society, a group whose ias unrpned all the stggl and victori the untry that have been won over the past half century. The notn of gays as an opprsed mory culture was a takeoff om the Marxist analysis of the opprsn of Ain Amerins and other groups as “natnal mori, ” a ncept wh a long pedigree Marxism-Lenism but which was particularly strsed after the Sixth Congrs of the Communist Internatnal 1928.

The spiratn of the Cultural Mory this as Hay formulated was, retrospect, an ironic one: Soviet lear Joseph Stal, the man largely rponsible for re-crimalizg homosexualy the USSR after the liberatg early years that followed the Rsian Revolutn. Drawg on Marxism’s foc on the overthrow of matriarchy and the onset of male domatn as part of the divisn of labor and the rise of private property, Hay argued that the origs of the opprsn of the homosexual was closely lked wh the opprsn of women. Wh an examatn of the historil roots of homosexual opprsn at least partially begun, Hay gave particular attentn to the issu of shared culture and language among homophil, the word ed by Mattache to refer to this muny formatn.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A GAY COMMUNIST WROTE TO STAL

“The Homophile mon psychologil make-up manifts self a muny of culture so phenomenologilly remarkable that transcends the mechanil barriers of formal language by creatg an ternatnal behavral language of s own, addn to sharg the pestrian language of each parental muny.

PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

From that pot on, there would of urse be setbacks, reversals, and ternal battl, but, the words of Timmons, the Cultural Mory this beme “the implic mo of self-unrstandg and muny anizatn of Lbian/Gay muni wherever they exist, ” even if s Marxist roots typilly went unacknowledged. The group set self three missns: unify, te, and lead; Hay sentially saw Mattache as a vanguard that would raise the nscns of opprsed homosexuals and move them to actn—not that different om what Communist Parti sought to do for the workg class generally. In the early Mattache Society, then, we fd a group of small-c munist gays who were attemptg to anize their emergg muny along the l of a dimentary Marxist analysis of their opprsn and wh the tools learned the fight agast fascism.

Even though circumstanc and prejudic did not allow them to be the Communist Party proper, Hay, Rowland, and other Mattache activists were dog munist work and attemptg to lk up the homosexual cultural mory wh others who were opprsed by palism and had an tert fightg . It drsed s gays sus and ti and s lbians drs and high heels, lookg down on the multiracial and workg class trans women and drag queens of the street—the “wretched of the earth” the words of the old Communist anthem, The Internatnale. In part one of this say, "The Communist Movement and Gay Rights, " which was posted on the PA blog, I alt broadly wh the stggl of the Communist movement agast the exploatn of the workg class and the opprsn of lonized peopl and natnal mori.

Today, the Obama admistratn has clearly mted self to gay civil rights, and the purveyors of homophobic polics are on the fensive and fightg rear-guard battl, even though homophobic vlence by street thugs, police btaly, and multifaceted forms of social stigmatizatn rema a part of life for gay men and lbians those areas of the untry where polil and social "nservativ" wield power. Gays have been volved the stggl for the emancipatn of the workg class as revolutnary agators, labor anizers, and partisans of socialist, munist and anarchist movements sce the days of the Paris Commune and the First Internatnal, when for many those three tegori were terchangeable. Sce homosexuals nnot be "found" om the rmatn on birth certifit or om circumcisns, etc., the way the Hler fascists hunted down people whom they fed as Jews, gay people had the "protectn" of wearg social masks or disguis, leadg double liv, and eher reprsg their sexual orientatn or livg an unrground or closeted existence.