From gay nspiracy to queer chic: the artists and wrers who changed the world | Books | The Guardian

Contents:

• 1917 RSIAN REVOLUTN: THE GAY MUNY'S BRIEF WDOW OF EEDOM
• LEN'S REVOLUTN: RED, GAY, AND ALMOST GLOR
• WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A GAY COMMUNIST WROTE TO STAL
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• FROM GAY NSPIRACY TO QUEER CHIC: THE ARTISTS AND WRERS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD

1917 RSIAN REVOLUTN: THE GAY MUNY'S BRIEF WDOW OF EEDOM

Due to the llapse of Communism 1991, and spe the bourgeois Wt ‘forcg’ the fledglg ‘palist’ Rsian State to openly ‘legalise’ male and female homosexualy 1993, the simultaneo re-emergence of the Rsian Orthodox Church to the polil arena has meant that regardls of this ‘godls’ secular law – the ‘Te Fah’ has once aga been lked to the fanatil holdg of ‘homophobic’ viewpots. He did not thk guts would e if had jt been a he gambled - rightly - that a proper weddg wh all the Rsian tradns, bread and salt, a blsg om the proud parents, and a ncert to follow, would be the time Rsia's gay muny was enjoyg a brief wdow of the October Revolutn 1917, the Bolsheviks scrapped and rewrote the untry's laws. They produced two Crimal Cos - 1922 and 1926 - and an article prohibg gay sex was left off source, Central State Library of St PetersburgImage ptn, Rsian sailors wh young men drsed women's cloth, 1916But the weddg Petrograd (now St Petersburg) was not all seemed.

The se was eventually closed and the "unter-revolutnari" got away wh nothg more than a to regnise 'one's own'Image source, Olga KhoroshilovaImage ptn, Apasha and Apashka, fashn ins of the NEP era, Lengrad, mid-1920sGay men had been part of a distct unrground muny Rsia long before the revolutn and they regnised each other by the "secret language" of St Petersburg, some wore red ti, or red shawls, onto which they would sew the back pockets of powred their fac and wore a lot of the revolutn, the heavily ma-up "silent film star look" beme more mastream and no longer jt a fashn for young gay more about the Rsian RevolutnThe upheaval of the revolutn and civil war brought hard tim to Rsia and gay men were not able to match the flamboyant cloth and luxury accsori favoured by some of their unterparts across but still persecutedThe Bolsheviks were directly fluenced by Magn Hirschfeld, a German scientist who found the Instute of Sexology Berl. It nsisted of soldiers, sailors, clerks - people who had not been part of the fashnable St Petersburg salons before the revolutn and who were not wele guts of the "aristocrats" after the 1920s, German Travti theatre - which men drs as women and vice versa - beme popular among Soviet gay men. Before the revolutn, Leifert was a supplier to the imperial urt and he also ma stum for the dancers of the Marisky then all me to an endAfter Afanasy Shr's plot to ensnare "unter-revolutnari" wh his spectacular gay marriage ceremony, there were no more high-profile weddgs or arrts like this the 1920s.

LEN'S REVOLUTN: RED, GAY, AND ALMOST GLOR

Petrograd, 1916-1917Those same assertns were repeated the early 1930s, as well as forced nfsns obtaed by the secret Case of the Lengrad Homosexuals led to the re-cln of the article outlawg homosexualy the new Crimal Co of 1934 and Rsia's short-lived tolerance of gay rights fally me to an Khoroshilova was speakg to BBC Rsian's Anna on this story. Sce he striv to approach this qutn om a Marxist viewpot, the thor of this letter believ that the cree ntradicts both the facts of life self and the prcipl of is a summary of the facts that are discsed tail the attached letter: On the whole, the ndn of homosexuals unr palism is analogo to the ndn of women, the loured rac, ethnic mori, and other groups that are reprsed for one reason or another; The attu of bourgeois society to homosexualy is based on the ntradictn between: palism’s need for “nnon fodr” and a rerve army of labour (leadg to reprsive laws agast homosexualy, which is regard as a threat to birth rat); the ever-growg poverty of the mass unr palism (leadg to the llapse of the workg-class fay and an crease homosexualy). Dear Comra Stal:Although I am a foreign munist who has not yet been promoted to the AUCP(b), [later to be renamed the CPSU, Communist Party of the Soviet Unn] I neverthels thk that will not seem unnatural to you, the lear of the world proletariat, that I addrs you wh a requt to shed light on a qutn that, as seems to me, has huge signifince for a large number of munists the USSR as well as other qutn is as follows: n a homosexual be nsired someone worthy of membership the Communist Party?

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A GAY COMMUNIST WROTE TO STAL

Consequently, they should be nsired even ls worthy to be members of the AUCP(b) I have a personal stake this qutn sofar as I am a homosexual myself, I addrsed this qutn to a number of ras om the OGPU and the People’s Commissariat for Jtice, to psychiatrists, and to Comra Borod, the edor--chief of the newspaper where I work. A photograph of homosexual and cross-drsg Rsians, prr to 1917 / Image: public domaAll that I managed to extract om them was a number of ntradictory opns which show that amongst the ras there is no clear theoretil unrstandg of what might have served as the basis for passage of the given law.

Somewhat earlier, when the arrts of homosexuals had only jt begun, Comra Borod was que discled to view me as a potential crimal; he did not regard me as a bad munist, and this was nfirmed by the fact that he promoted me at work by appotg me head of edorial staff, which is the hight-rankg supervisory posn wh the exceptn of members of the edorial board. On the other hand, however, after the law was issued on March 7, I had a nversatn the OGPU which I was told that the law would be strictly applied to each se of homosexualy that was brought to nnectn wh the lack of clary that exists this matter, I turn to you the hope that you will fd the time to give me an me to expla to you this qutn as I unrstand and foremost, I would like to pot out that I view the ndn of homosexuals who are eher of workg-class orig or workers themselv to be analogo to the ndn of women unr the palist regime and the loured rac who are opprsed by imperialism.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

This ndn is likewise siar many ways to the ndn of the Jews unr Hler’s dictatorship, and general is not hard to see an analogy wh the ndn of any social stratum subjected to exploatn and persecutn unr palist we analyse the nature of the persecutn of homosexuals, we should keep md that there are two typ of homosexuals: first, those who are the way they are om birth (moreover, if scientists disagree about the precise reasons for this, then there is no disagreement that certa ep-seated reasons do exist); send, there are homosexuals who had a normal sexual life but later beme homosexuals, sometim out of vicns, sometim out of enomic for the send type, the qutn is cid relatively simply.

" / Image: public domaJt as the women of the bourgeois class suffer to a signifintly lser gree om the jtic of the palist regime (you of urse remember what Len said about this), so do natural-born homosexuals of the domant class suffer much ls om persecutn than homosexuals om the workg-class i. Capalism, which needs an enormo rerve army of labour and nnon fodr orr to flourish, regards homosexualy as a factor that threatens to lower birth rat (as we know, the palist untri there are laws that punish abortn and other methods of ntraceptn) urse, the attu of the bourgeoisie to the homosexual qutn is typil hypocrisy.

Th the fact of [Astor’s nvictn] beme known thanks to ntradictns wh the domant to s wealth, the bourgeoisie n avoid the legal punishment that scends all s severy on homosexual workers wh the exceptn of those s when the latter have prostuted themselv to members of the domant class. But at the same time, by worseng the livg ndns of workers, palism produc the objective ndns for an crease the number of homosexuals who take to this way of life by virtue of material ntradictn is reflected the fact that fascism, which employed the perast [Mar] van r Lubbe as a weapon s provotn, at the same time btally supprsed the liberal-telligentsia “liberatn” movement of homosexuals led by Dr. However, bee fascism stroys the workg-class fay and furthers the impoverishment of the mass, sentially stimulat the velopment of the send type of homosexualy I have scribed — that is, [homosexualy] out of only solutn to this ntradictn is the revolutnary transformatn of the existg orr and the creatn of a society which the absence of unemployment, the growg prospery of the mass, and the liquidatn of the fay as an enomic un secure the ndns which no one will be forced to perasty out of necsy.

FROM GAY NSPIRACY TO QUEER CHIC: THE ARTISTS AND WRERS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD

Comra Borod poted out to me that I should not attach too much signifince to the article on homosexualy the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia bee (he said) s thor was a homosexual himself and the article was published durg a perd when a number of viatns had still not yet been exposed.

I took this step spe the fact that I did not know whether ntemporary rearchers had succeed tablishg the te nature of homosexualy and the possibily of nvertg homosexuals to heterosexuals — that is, to people who engage the sexual act only wh members of the oppose sex. This should be kept md, and seems to me that one should refully weigh the dangers of sexual levellg precisely for this branch of Soviet culture, for at prent we do not as yet posss a sufficiently scientific explanatn of image is a Che Communist Party propaganda poster, celebratg the relatnship between Mao's Cha and the USSR, regim which homosexuals were severely opprsed. )It seems to me that this excerpt om Comra Stal’s report has a direct bearg on the qutn that I am is important, however, is that even if one pursu this levellg the prent, is impossible to achieve eher wh medil or legislative both psychiatrists whom I vised were forced by my sistent qutns to nfs that s of curable homosexualy exist, I fally tablished my own attu to the should regnize that there is such a thg as eradible homosexualy— I have yet to enunter facts that would refute this— and hence as a nsequence, seems to me, one should regnize as evable the existence of this mory society, be a palist or even a socialist society.

(i nt believe i say "mighty" after i cursed for, lets say objectively mighty, e was somethg really powerful)Before this revolutns, before the creatn of the Soviet Unn, gay relatns were illegal Rsia, we were unr prsure(im not ssian), unr agrsn, the extreme characteristic homophobia of those specific tim, of that specific a time which all the Wt was absolutly homophobic, all manners, the new ernement will pletly legalize homosexual activy, and not only that, but even PUBLIC exposure as other words, not even that they dont take you om your home, put you prison, for the accatn of sodomy, ANYMORE, but on TOP of that, you uld be pubicly uld exprs yourself uld have functns the like Gey Chicher who was one of the most brilliant poet Mikhail Kuzm, who was one of Rsia most celebrated poets.