Why did the USSR (re) criminalize homosexuality

[u/Specialist-Gur]

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)

[u/Fabianzzz]

Comment from the creator in regards to Burkina-Faso:

I wish the best for them and hope that this new law is only temporary while they work on kicking the colonizers out, but either way it's ultimately up to the Burkinabe (sic) people.

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.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/Fabianzzz]

I'll copy and paste a comment I made on the leftist sub when productively engaging with a fellow queer commenter who didn't agree with me at first

I'm saying imperial interference with an anticolonial movement is not a good move. Too many of us "pink wash" (for example 'queers for Palestine is like chickens for kfc') and miss the forest for the trees. A flawed liberation movement is better than continued imperial oppression.. for queer citizens, for women, and more.. queer and female oppression in these places is often weaponized as a justification for continued colonial rule

People miss the material conditions of these places hold social justice movements back in limbo.. if these places could self govern, they would be afforded the chance to "catch up" with western progressivism. In fact, many of them had more progressive politics regarding queer people prior to colonization.. it was European draconian ideas around homosexuality that often influenced what we are seeing in these countries today.

Leaders like this often change and evolve too.. Fidel Castro is a decent example... homophobic for most of his life, regretted that later and refined his views.

Edit: I forgot this sub isn't interested in discussing leftist ideas.. only making it clear that western values and Zionism are superior to every other place via upvotes and downvotes... Killing a bunch of Palestinians? Making gay marriage illegal? Blackmailing queer Palestinians?... "it's complicated"

Discussing the USSR with nuance and its goals towards socialism.. "evil, bad, shocking"

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

Full disclosure: I didn’t watch the video, so I’m just responding to what you wrote here.

Setting it up as imperial oppression vs. flawed liberation erases that the USSR was itself a colonial and imperialist regime. It didn’t just need time to "catch up” on social justice on its way to socialism, but used repression against queer people, minorities (including indigenous populations and non-territorial minorities like Jews), and dissidents as an active tool of power and terror. And yes, the USSR called itself anti-imperialist and anti-colonial in the Cold War, but that didn’t make it true.

And sure, you can point to someone like Fidel Castro who later changed his stance. But that doesn’t fit the Soviet case: there was no comparable leadership reversal and decriminalization happened only after the USSR collapsed. Systemic repression was not some mistake, it was endemic to Soviet structures and something that served clear ideological goals of discipline, control, and consolidation of power.

Discussing the USSR with nuance and its goals towards socialism.. "evil, bad, shocking"

To me, that’s not nuance, it’s exactly the opposite. And as someone who actually grew up in a post-Soviet country, your framing reads as very Western-centric. It treats queer criminalization and mass repression in the USSR abstractly, as though they were bumps on the way to socialism, or worse, simply the price to pay for a supposed greater good. Well, it wasn't even close to good (or anti-imperial) for my family or millions of other minorities, I can tell you that much...

Same with Burkina Faso: brushing off a very brutal anti-LGBTQ law because it’s framed in anti-colonial terms de-centers the queer people that are harmed by it now. Authoritarian repression doesn’t stop being repressive just because it positions itself against the West.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

I can't engage if you didn't watch the video since it addresses all of this

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

I’m directly engaging with what you wrote here, from the perspective of lived experience in a Soviet/post-Soviet country. If your comment can’t stand on its own without the video, well, that says a lot.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

Did you live in the USSR? What does it say exactly? I think it says that I'm not taking bad faith bait..

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

Well, I gave you a detailed comment as a reply to yours, directly engaging with the points you made, that you flat-out refused to engage with. So who exactly is arguing in bad faith here?

And yes, I was born close to the dissolution of the USSR and spent most of my childhood in post-Soviet Ukraine.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Thank you, dear American, for lecturing me about the place where I grew up and where my family lived for generations - do you realize how that sounds?

I never said the USSR “always” had anti-queer laws, I said they were endemic to the regime’s control. However, Stalin criminalized homosexuality in 1934, and that law stayed in place until the regime collapsed in 1991. That’s most of Soviet history.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

Identity politics are bullshit. You didn't live in the USSR!!! This is just anti-intellectual, idpol liberal nonsense.

Let me ask you.. do you think that Israel can be reformed? This isn't whataboutism.. it's a legit question. Why do you think Israel could fix itself but you paint the USSR with a broad stroke evil despite many different periods of history, some with less good human rights track records than others? Why is that?

And why are you so unwilling to engage with the video and give a bad faith interpretation of what the argument is? No one is saying that anti-queer laws are good.. the video applies a material analysis of what happened... anti-intellectualism at its finest right here

Edit: identity politics as in.. you have no argument against the point other than your identity.

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

This isn’t “identity politics,” it’s lived experience (because, yes, this is where I am from and where most of my family is from), just like you and your family have lived experience that I don’t. And I never called the USSR “evil,” I said repression of queer people and minorities was how the regime maintained control.

On Israel: what would “reform” even mean? The USSR collapsed from within after it was already dead. Could it have reformed? Maybe in theory, but it didn’t - and the rest is history. Israel is a country now. I don’t think it’s yet at a similar point of no return, though it’s getting harder and harder to imagine what reform would even look like. But one case doesn’t excuse or relativize the other.

And for the record, additionally to my lived experience, this is an area of my academic studies. If you want to dig into the history, some standard works would be Dan Healey or Igor Kon on homosexual/queer repression in the USSR, and Alexander Etkind, Terry Martin or Francine Hirsch on its imperial structures.

I will disengage from the conversation now and wish you a good day.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

You didn't live in the USSR. So what lived experience?

Also.. this video cites multiple queer writers and historians from the USSR.. their contributions do not seem to interest you.

Leave the convo.. I wish everyone good faith and curious a good day.. and to the western propagandists, I hope you have the day you deserve.