So the argument in that link is “everyone else was homophobic too so it’s okay”, and I need to stress that that is not unshakeably principled behaviour. That is an example of shaken principles. If your defence of Stalin is “he was only as bad as the capitalists”, he’s still shit.
You are missing the point. Also, bringing up gay rights in the USSR is a non-sequitur, it has nothing to do with what my original comment was about. I was doing you a favor providing you with a source that explains the historical context behind the unrelated topic that you brought up, it’s up to you if you prefer to ignore it.
You said he was unshakeably principled. If you don’t want people to challenge your claims, don’t make them. It’s not changing the subject to call you out on the bullshit you didn’t want people to call you out on, it’s just life. Get used to it.
Yes, he was a principled marxist. Marx didn’t really write about gay people. LGBT rights weren’t on the radar of the average marxist (or much of anybody really) in the early 20th century.
LGBT rights weren’t on the radar of the average marxist
Plenty of German leftists, Marxist or otherwise signed a petition, in the 1890s, opposing Paragraph 175 of the German Legal code that criminalized homosexuality, including Albert Einstein, August Bebel, and Karl Kautsky.
Queer activists, like Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Magnus Hirschfeld, actively sought out far left politicians in their attempt to repeal the law.
Bebel, who was the one to sponsor the bill to repeal paragraph 175, continued to be an advocate of women’s and queer rights throughout his life and career.
Alexandra Kollontai was Bisexual and opposed the criminalization of homosexuality under Stalin’s administration.
Harry Hay, who would found The Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights groups in the US, was organizing farm workers for the Communist Party as far back as the 1930s.
Queer issues were definitely on the radar of plenty of Socialists in the early 20th century.
This argument gives the same vibes as “but everyone was racist back then!” arguments that American liberals give to hand wave away past injustices.
If we’re to be thoughtful dialectical materialists about this: while queerness has always existed, and cultures throughout history have had queer subcultures, such as the Kathoey in Thailand or Molly Houses in England, the development of Capitalism brought with it a trend towards a more systematized, wider reaching regimentation of reproductive labor, then what had been seen under previous forms of class society.
On the one hand, this brought about the categorization and subsequent oppression of queer people. But on the other hand, industrialization brought people into urban areas, socialized labor, and allowed queer people to form larger communities, who could start organizing politically on a large scale.
Since the Soviet Union had not industrialized, that pressure on queer people in the Soviet Union, to organize at a large scale, didn’t exist. And the prevalence of queer organizing in the more industrialized west, brought Stalin’s administration to make the idealist error that queerness was an outgrowth of “bourgeois decadence”, rather than material conditions.
“Unshakeably principled as a communist and anti-imperialist”, nowhere was it mentioned he was a perfect human, especially on social issues. What is your point exactly? No-one on this instance is saying that Stalin was jesus, and even Jesus was a homophobe
Considering it’s Easter, I’m just going to jump in and say Jesus didn’t say anything homophobic. You’re thinking of Paul in Letters to the Romans, and even then it’s disputed.
Fair enough. There’s no account of Jesus being homophobic in the Gospels, but the Church, excluding a minority of LGBTQ+ affirming denominations, is very much a homophobic institution. I’ve heard Christians justify or condemn practically every act known to man using Jesus’ words, so depending on who you listen to, he very well might have been a homophobe.
So the argument in that link is “everyone else was homophobic too so it’s okay”, and I need to stress that that is not unshakeably principled behaviour. That is an example of shaken principles. If your defence of Stalin is “he was only as bad as the capitalists”, he’s still shit.
You are missing the point. Also, bringing up gay rights in the USSR is a non-sequitur, it has nothing to do with what my original comment was about. I was doing you a favor providing you with a source that explains the historical context behind the unrelated topic that you brought up, it’s up to you if you prefer to ignore it.
You said he was unshakeably principled. If you don’t want people to challenge your claims, don’t make them. It’s not changing the subject to call you out on the bullshit you didn’t want people to call you out on, it’s just life. Get used to it.
Yes, he was a principled marxist. Marx didn’t really write about gay people. LGBT rights weren’t on the radar of the average marxist (or much of anybody really) in the early 20th century.
Plenty of German leftists, Marxist or otherwise signed a petition, in the 1890s, opposing Paragraph 175 of the German Legal code that criminalized homosexuality, including Albert Einstein, August Bebel, and Karl Kautsky.
Queer activists, like Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Magnus Hirschfeld, actively sought out far left politicians in their attempt to repeal the law.
Bebel, who was the one to sponsor the bill to repeal paragraph 175, continued to be an advocate of women’s and queer rights throughout his life and career.
Alexandra Kollontai was Bisexual and opposed the criminalization of homosexuality under Stalin’s administration.
Harry Hay, who would found The Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights groups in the US, was organizing farm workers for the Communist Party as far back as the 1930s.
Queer issues were definitely on the radar of plenty of Socialists in the early 20th century.
This argument gives the same vibes as “but everyone was racist back then!” arguments that American liberals give to hand wave away past injustices.
If we’re to be thoughtful dialectical materialists about this: while queerness has always existed, and cultures throughout history have had queer subcultures, such as the Kathoey in Thailand or Molly Houses in England, the development of Capitalism brought with it a trend towards a more systematized, wider reaching regimentation of reproductive labor, then what had been seen under previous forms of class society.
On the one hand, this brought about the categorization and subsequent oppression of queer people. But on the other hand, industrialization brought people into urban areas, socialized labor, and allowed queer people to form larger communities, who could start organizing politically on a large scale.
Since the Soviet Union had not industrialized, that pressure on queer people in the Soviet Union, to organize at a large scale, didn’t exist. And the prevalence of queer organizing in the more industrialized west, brought Stalin’s administration to make the idealist error that queerness was an outgrowth of “bourgeois decadence”, rather than material conditions.
“Unshakeably principled as a communist and anti-imperialist”, nowhere was it mentioned he was a perfect human, especially on social issues. What is your point exactly? No-one on this instance is saying that Stalin was jesus, and even Jesus was a homophobe
Considering it’s Easter, I’m just going to jump in and say Jesus didn’t say anything homophobic. You’re thinking of Paul in Letters to the Romans, and even then it’s disputed.
Fair enough. There’s no account of Jesus being homophobic in the Gospels, but the Church, excluding a minority of LGBTQ+ affirming denominations, is very much a homophobic institution. I’ve heard Christians justify or condemn practically every act known to man using Jesus’ words, so depending on who you listen to, he very well might have been a homophobe.
That’s fair and undeniably true!