Towards a Gay Communism Towards a Gay Communism Elements of Homosexual Crique Mar Mieli Translated by David Fernbach and Evan Calr
Contents:
- TOWARDS A GAY COMMUNISM
- MAR MIELI - TOWARDS A GAY COMMUNISM: ELEMENTS OF A HOMOSEXUAL CRIQUE
- TOWARDS A GAY COMMUNISM: ELEMENTS OF A HOMOSEXUAL CRIQUE [PDF]
TOWARDS A GAY COMMUNISM
A lear of the Italian gay liberatn movement the 1970s, Mar Mieli bed a radil theoretil perspective wh a urageo (and often provotive)... * towards a gay communism *
Among the most important works ever to addrs the relatnship between homosexualy, homophobia and palism, Mieli's say ntu to pose a radil challenge to today's domant queer theory and polics. In his view the liberatn of homosexual sire requir the emancipatn of sexualy om both patriarchal sex rol and pal. Drawg heavily upon Marx and psychoanalysis to arrive at a dazzlgly origal visn, Towards a Gay Communism is a hherto neglected classic that will be sential readg for all who seek to unrstand the te meang of sexual liberatn unr palism today.
Mar Mieli was a leadg figure the Italian gay movement of the 1970s, rpected as one of the movement's most profound tellectuals. His work Towards a Gay Communism (Pluto, 2018) was nsired a ntroversial classic of the era. Towards a Gay Communism belongs to a visnary tradn of ecstatic utopianism...
Homosexual Dire is Universal2.
MAR MIELI - TOWARDS A GAY COMMUNISM: ELEMENTS OF A HOMOSEXUAL CRIQUE
Fire and Brimstone, or How Homosexuals Beme Gay3.
Towards a Gay Communism7. The EndAppendix A: Unpublished Preface to Homosexualy and Liberatn by Mar Mieli (1980)Appendix B: Translator’s addnal note om Chapter 1Inx. We reproduce here a letter that Harry Whyte (a Brish Communist Party member) wrote to Stal May 1934, which Whyte posed the qutn: “n a homosexual be nsired someone worthy of membership the Communist Party?
TOWARDS A GAY COMMUNISM: ELEMENTS OF A HOMOSEXUAL CRIQUE [PDF]
” the time, Whyte (himself homosexual) was workg Mosw at the Mosw Daily News. 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). Science nfirms that an signifint percentage of the populatn suffers om nstutnal homosexualy.
The new law on homosexualy has provoked the most var and ntradictory terpretatns. The March 7 law is absurd and unjt om the viewpot of science, which has proven the existence of nstutnal homosexuals and has no means at s disposal to change the sexual nature of homosexuals. 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?
The recently promulgated law on crimal liabily for sodomy, which was affirmed by the USSR Central Executive Commtee on March 7 of this year, apparently means that homosexuals nnot be regnized as worthy of the tle of Soviet cizen. 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.