Gay life Stal’s Gulag | openDemocracy

Contents:

• WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A GAY COMMUNIST WROTE TO STAL
• GAY LIFE STAL’S GULAG
• WAS STAL GAY
• AM I GAY?

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A GAY COMMUNIST WROTE TO STAL

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.

GAY LIFE STAL’S GULAG

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.

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.

WAS STAL GAY

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.

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. 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.

AM I GAY?

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. 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. 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. 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.