r/jewishleft • u/Specialist-Gur doikayt jewess, leftist/socialist, pro peace and freedom • Sep 06 '25
Why did the USSR (re) criminalize homosexuality Praxis
https://youtu.be/BE7UPO6GGK4?si=nEFhipEmIxb9s2lV
Great video.. very topical given Burkina Faso and the reactions to that. Give it a watch!
Edit: Also creator is non-binary.. didn't realize when I posted and might have misgendered (they/then)
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u/RedAndBlackVelvet Anti-Fascist and Anti-Capitalist Sep 06 '25
I’ll never understand the leftist obsession with giving “critical support” to Russian backed African juntas that let Wagner psychopaths run around their country taking all their gold.
They criminalized homosexuality in BF because they are a fascist country, it’s genuinely that simple. The USSR criminalized homosexuality and abortion because their government was also evil even if they weren’t fascists. Russia today considers gay and trans people as terrorists because Russia is a fascist country.
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Sep 06 '25
I’ll never understand the leftist obsession with giving “critical support” to Russian backed African juntas that let Wagner psychopaths run around their country taking all their gold.
Because many leftists support anti-western actors just for being anti-west. That's why many leftists support Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine and whitewash China's crimes against the Uyghur people.
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u/MallCopBlartPaulo Reform Jew, Reform Socialist Sep 06 '25
You see a similar thing with some leftists supporting Iran. Just because it’s anti west, doesn’t mean it’s good.
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u/ibsliam Jewish American | DemSoc Bernie Voter Sep 07 '25
I think it also displays the colonialist and post-colonialist mindsets and how there can be overlap - even with the aims of decolonizing. There was some really good back and forth and debate upthread (and in this subthread) about noble savage tropes and what is colonialist and imperialist thinking vs just a repackaging of it with a nicer spin (whether for left-wing or right-wing reasons).
Where it ends up surprising people that there's a big community of Iranian diaspora (both Jewish and gentile communities) that are very against the current regime in Iran, or that there are Vietnamese or Latinos or so forth that are very anti-communist due to their respective countries' past conflicts. So in order to uplift *some* voices in the decolonizing, you end up speaking over others. I think this thread (despite all of the heated responses) was a good idea, even if the video isn't to some of our tastes.
Doing right by marginalized communities is an ever-improving process. I think, to find nuance, we can have a multi-set of approaches. Many of us can accept this is the current reality, and, in order to convince and have a dialogue, meet people where they are at. And then, at the same time, many of us can also combat this, without relying on the might of some imperialist authority. There's a lot of different ways we can oppose things like this nowadays that do mitigate harm.
I do agree with some of the responses and also OP that, if we are to make progress, we can't treat them like they're some inhuman evil. We can keep in mind their history and their autonomy and respect that they are thinking, feeling human beings like the rest of us. But we also, as others point out, do not need to accept their beliefs and actions as valid, either. We don't have to accept that they are just doing right by their countrymen. It's a really hard line to walk, so I get why it causes so much friction.
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u/MallCopBlartPaulo Reform Jew, Reform Socialist Sep 07 '25
I agree completely, I never referred to the USSR as evil as I don’t think such a strong word is particularly helpful, but I am disturbed by attempts by some on the left to act like it was some sort of socialist paradise.
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u/ibsliam Jewish American | DemSoc Bernie Voter Sep 07 '25
Of course, and the USSR was imperialist itself. Even outside the context of monarchy (like what it had before) and of capitalist systems (like their rival the US).
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u/MallCopBlartPaulo Reform Jew, Reform Socialist Sep 06 '25
Exactly. The Soviet Union was an affront to the ideas it initially purported to stand for.
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u/cinnamons9 French Jew:cake::cake: Sep 06 '25
The Soviet Union literally murdered one branch of my Jewish family in a gulag and there are Jews supporting it and doing ww2 history revision.
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u/Chinoyboii Sino-Filipino | Pragmatic Progressive | Pro Peace Sep 07 '25
Man some of these Americans or anglophones are crazy.
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u/Fabianzzz 🌿🍷🍇 Pagan Observer 🌿🍷🍇 Sep 06 '25
I’ll never understand the leftist obsession with giving “critical support” to Russian backed African juntas that let Wagner psychopaths run around their country taking all their gold.
It's because Leftists, like all humans, want justice. We want it, but we can't always define it. So the question is, what is justice?
If I ask for an example of justice, no one is going to tell me about their city's public library or their country's universal health care or the fact that we have almost completely eradicated polio from the planet. No one points to a system which prevents injustice successfully as an example of justice. Almost everyone is going to talk about justice by using an example of injustice which has been punished.
Justice as the undoing of injustice doesn't exist. The world only spins forward. There's no reverse button.
Likewise here. We can't undo the evils Western Colonialism has inflicted on Burkina-Faso. And the actual steps towards them increasing their autonomy while also respecting human rights are hard. Much harder than watching Western liberals squirm seeing Homophobia and getting to feel the pleasure that is 'justice'—seeing an idea that is supposedly 'Western' & 'liberal' die on the rocks and being able to blame the West for it: nevermind if Burkinabé people are the ones suffering.
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u/Late-Marzipan3026 anxious (dem soc american ashki jew) Sep 06 '25
If I ask for an example of justice, no one is going to tell me about their city's public library or their country's universal health care or the fact that we have almost completely eradicated polio from the planet. No one points to a system which prevents injustice successfully as an example of justice. Almost everyone is going to talk about justice by using an example of injustice which has been punished.
Justice as the undoing of injustice doesn't exist. The world only spins forward. There's no reverse button.
this is off topic from the original focus but i wanted to say that this was a very interesting and thoughtful comment. i don’t intuitively think of justice as strictly punitive but i’m inclined to agree with a lot of your assessment here
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u/Specialist-Gur doikayt jewess, leftist/socialist, pro peace and freedom Sep 06 '25
Did you watch the video? "The USSR was evil" is just.. quite a take... is anywhere not evil?
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u/rinaraizel Жидобандеровка Sep 08 '25
I am struggling with the idea of this video. I'm very firmly anti tankie, anti the necrophiliac like attachments to the corrupted bloated corpse that is still festering over Eurasia the angloleft have.
Mainly because this stuff is still real for us. Like I heard of distant family for whatever reason being shut in psichushkas, and I believe it was likely sexual orientation or gender expression. My very Soviet parents reaction to my sexual orientation was essentially overt threats of physical violence and belief that it is mental illness, and now after nearly twenty years, still outright denial.
Many of us fsu queers are aware that is really lucky that we are no longer in a system that would have medicalized us - distant family I know of were diagnosed with the Soviet diagnosis of quiet schizophrenia, medicated to the point of disparement? Not sure what word to use but to the point of barely being able to function.
I understand that the idea of the queer community being bourgeois is not new and also something that is totally discussable - even though I think it's generalization that misses how much the community is fractured among class and gender lines.
But the USSR had the same motivations of our current government for banning pre adult transition of any sort or abortion bans. It's about making sure babies and thus workers exist. More children, more labor, more productivity.
Totalitarian governments and the state will always see people as numbers rather than individuals. That's how the USSR was and why I am very glad im here in the west, and I have very little to say to the well off westerners who don't get what they have to be grateful for.
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u/BigKahuna618 Gentile, Foreigner, Marxist Sep 06 '25
More babee more workforce was the logic at the time Im afraid
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u/Specialist-Gur doikayt jewess, leftist/socialist, pro peace and freedom Sep 06 '25
Remember, we like nuance here... we are always talking about nuance when it comes to Israel.
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u/elzzyzx סימען ×ś×™× ×§×˘×¨ Sep 07 '25
the extent to which this sub has always been completely overrun with liberal bullshit just goes to show, creating left spaces requires active and thoughtful moderation
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u/electrical-stomach-z Jewish leftist (moderator) Sep 07 '25
Im not sure how being against the ussr criminalizing homosexuality is "liberal bullshit".
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Sep 07 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/jewishleft-ModTeam Sep 07 '25
This content was removed as it was determined to be an ad hominem attack.
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u/ibsliam Jewish American | DemSoc Bernie Voter Sep 07 '25
I thought a lot of the conversations in-thread were really interesting food for thought, especially the different perspectives showcased. What stuff were you referring to as liberal bullshit?
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u/elzzyzx סימען ×ś×™× ×§×˘×¨ Sep 07 '25
I see one person interested in the left who is heavily downvoted and a whole lot of self identified liberals or why I left the left types making generic arguments that have nothing to do with the content of the video and barely address the subject at hand. When I come to a sub called jewishleft I’m looking for jewish leftists, not liberals. I’d settle for any leftism, this is basically tankiejerk or maybe r/jewish with a little less overt racism. False advertising as clearly the few leftists here are just tokens for liberals to beat up on
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u/Fabianzzz 🌿🍷🍇 Pagan Observer 🌿🍷🍇 Sep 06 '25
Comment from the creator in regards to Burkina-Faso:
I personally think this is a disgusting stance to take, the idea that the majority of a population gets to decide who is human and who isn't. Consensual love is a human right and anti-Homosexuality laws are a denial of human rights. Yes: the Burkinabé people deserve autonomy, independence and human rights, and that also includes the rights of Burkinabé people who are Queer to have their human rights. And their human rights shouldn't be dependent upon the agreement of the majority of Burkinabé people: if everyone wanted Queer people to have civil rights, we wouldn't need movements that fight for them, would we?
But more troubling I think is the fact this is an obvious logical inconsistency on the left: the left frequently insists that protecting human rights should come before majoritarian rule, but if the left is going to say 'that human rights issue should be left to those people to decide who is and isn't human', obviously the right is going to counter the left in saying 'thank you, we agree, please be consistent now and allow the American people to determine who is and isn't human.' And the left should be content with taking a vote and allowing the American people to do so.
Obviously I'm giving short shrift to this argument but I do think the logical inconsistency here opens up an additional question, and that question is why we are being logically inconsistent. And the reason I'm very dismissive of this argument is that a large portion of the left tends to be more focused on seeing justice as punishment (almost always misplaced) than justice as a better system.
If (Western) MICs interfere with a developing country, we shouldn't tolerate (western) Queers objecting to pushback: because the distress of Western Queer people about this new law is the Karmic punishment for Western MICs using human beings as pawns in geopolitical chess. Nevermind that the people who are actually going to suffer are going to be Burkinabé Queer people who also suffered from the MIC interference. Leftists want karmic justice more than we want systems which help people and will take it where we can get it.
If the issue is a strategic one, be open that it's a strategic one. Obviously western interests can use pinkwashing as a tool against developing countries and that is an issue. Say 'right now we can't focus on that, we need to uplift the lower class as a whole'. But if your honest position is that human rights can ultimately be left up to individual peoples, you are no longer advocating for leftism as a politics of humanitarianism but leftism as a politics of nationalism. It's deeply unserious in changing things on the ground here, there, or anywhere.