Gay life Stal’s Gulag | openDemocracy

Contents:

• GAY LIFE STAL’S GULAG
• A DOUBLE DEFEAT: CATASTROPHE FOR GAY EMANCIPATN GERMANY AND THE USSR
• 1917 RSIAN REVOLUTN: THE GAY MUNY'S BRIEF WDOW OF EEDOM
• THE REVOLUTNARY WAR HERO WHO WAS OPENLY GAY
• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A GAY COMMUNIST WROTE TO STAL
• GAY THE USSR

GAY LIFE STAL’S GULAG

This terview troduc the work of acclaimed historian Dan Healey, who sheds light on how gay men survived the Soviet Gulag, their life afterwards and different attus the USSR to gay men and Healey, Profsor of Morn Rsian History at Oxford Universy, has explored the history of homosexualy tsarist and Soviet Rsia, the nature of masculy unr socialism, the problems of sexual disorrs and sexual vlence the USSR and the history of medice Stal’s Gulag. Healey is the thor of the only published monograph on the history of homosexualy Rsia: Homosexual Dire Revolutnary Rsia: The Regulatn of Sexual and Genr Gkov spoke to Dan Healey after the lnch of his latt book: Rsian Homophobia om Stal to do we know about gay/queer people Gulag? That giv you a kd of snapshot of the posn of the group of people imprisoned for their homosexualy unr Article 154-a of the RSFSR Penal relatns between men were punishable by imprisonment of between three and five years, and sexual relatns between men wh the e of vlence or the subjugatn of one party to the other were punishable by imprisonment of between five and eight subjects of your book were not only people arrted unr Article 154-a.

A DOUBLE DEFEAT: CATASTROPHE FOR GAY EMANCIPATN GERMANY AND THE USSR

Also, “outg”, the public disclosure of rmatn about gays’ sexual orientatn, uld, an atmosphere of public homophobia, bee a potential risk for blackmail by foreign telligence polil terpretatn of this “crime” was the reason for the severy of sentenc unr Article 154-a, as “polils” were “socially hostile” mat the Soviet prison mp system. The letter seems fact to have been a piece of provotn on the part of the OGPU, signed to jtify arrtg gays the terts of natnal another letter to Stal, the OGPU proposed more severe sentenc for public exprsns of homosexualy and for payment for sex between men. I thk that for Stal, homosexualy was a “male” issue, nnected to natnal and his circle did not approve of women’s emancipatn: there was not a sgle woman the PolburoWomen, on the other hand, didn’t serve the armed forc and weren’t particularly active the secury ans, so they were ls of a risk.

Before 1933, Joseph Goebbels had long nounced Hirschfeld and the Instute for Sexual Science’s claims that homosexuals fact reprented a “third sex, ” that same-sex timacy should not be tegorized as crimal, and that people troubled by “physil and psychologil sex disorrs” should be provid the bt unsellg and treatment available. Goebbels also knew that the Instute’s prence Berl had been backed by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), power Berl sce 1919, and hoed the Scientific Humanarian Commtee (found by Hirschfeld 1897 to advance homosexual rights) and an ternatnal anizatn, the World League for Sexual Reform. 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.

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

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. They poured out their souls, askg him to help them pe wh prsn and even to "cure their illns" letters and other documents show that members of the gay muny were credibly brave - some wore women's drs and rsets, wore their hair long and often looked like real women.

THE REVOLUTNARY WAR HERO WHO WAS OPENLY GAY

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.

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

Although homosexualy was tolerated, the muny started to lose s eedom the source, Olga KhoroshilovaImage ptn, Rsian "Travti" theatre, 1910sIn July 1933, 175 gay men om different walks of life were arrted what me to be known as the Case of the Lengrad Homosexuals. 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. Our laws proceed om the prciple of protectn of society and therefore untenance punishment only those stanc when juvenil and mors are the objects of homosexual tert … while regnizg the rrectns of homosexual velopment … our society b prophylactic and other theraptic measur wh all the necsary ndns for makg the nflicts that afflict homosexuals as pals as possible and for rolvg their typil trangement om society wh the llective—Sereisky, Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1930, p.

So “while regnizg the rrectns of homosexual velopment … our society b prophylactic and other theraptic measur wh all the necsary ndns for makg the nflicts that afflict homosexuals as pals as possible and for rolvg their typil trangement om society wh the llective” (Sereisky, 1930, p. Naturally, the society that arose out of the nservative Rsian monarchy, not even the munists were unanimo on the matters: Whyte noted the disapproval of homosexualy by his superr, Mikhail Borod, although he add that Borod neverthels nsired a personal matter, and nsired Whyte a good munist.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A GAY COMMUNIST WROTE TO STAL

The openg receptn on September 4 will feature a performative readg by actor Chris Dunlop of the 1934 letter to Joseph Stal by the Brish Communist and Mosw rint Harry Whyte, which he attempts to fend homosexualy om a Marxist-Lenist perspective the face of the mpaign of mass arrts that swept Mosw and Lengrad gay circl 1933-1934. The artist’s new book, Mosw, is an evotive but unembellished medatn on gay cisg the pal cy, featurg photographs of the public toilets near the Hermage Garns; the stairs to the riversi embankment by Mosw Universy; the Bolshoi Theater; and many other inic lotns.

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? 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 THE USSR

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.