In 1933, the Soviet government under
Stalin recriminalised sex between men. On 7 March 1934, Article 121 was added to the criminal code for the entire Soviet Union that expressly prohibited only male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labour in prison. There were no criminal statutes regarding sex between women. During the Soviet regime, Western observers believed that between 800 and 1,000 men were imprisoned each year under Article 121.
[37]
Some historians have noted that it was during this time that Soviet propaganda began to depict homosexuality as a sign of
fascism[38] and that Article 121 may have a simple political tool to use against dissidents, irrespective of their true
sexual orientation and to solidify Russian opposition to Nazi Germany, who had broken its treaty with Russia.
[39] In a famous article in
Pravda on 23 May 1934,
Maxim Gorky said: "There is already a sarcastic saying: Destroy homosexuality and fascism will disappear."
[40]
In 1993, declassified Soviet documents revealed that Stalin had personally demanded the introduction of an anti-gay law, in response to a report from deputy secret police chief
Genrikh Yagoda, who had conducted a raid on the residence of hundreds of homosexuals in Moscow and Leningrad in August 1933,
[41] about "Pederast activists" engaging in orgies and espionage activities.
[42] Beyond expressed fears of a vast "counterrevolutionary
fascist homosexual conspiracy", there were several high-profile arrests of Russian men accused of being
pederasts.
[43] In 1933, 130 men "were accused of being 'pederasts' – adult males who have sex with boys. Since no records of men having sex with boys at that time are available, it is possible this term was used broadly and crudely to label homosexuality".
[43] Whatever the precise reason, homosexuality remained a serious criminal offense until it was repealed in 1993.
[43]
The Soviet government refrained from publicizing the new law outside of the USSR, and there was little international response. In 1934, the British communist Harry Whyte wrote a long letter to Stalin condemning the law and its prejudicial motivations. He laid out a Marxist position against the oppression of homosexuals as a social minority and compared homophobia to racism, xenophobia and sexism.
[44] Stalin did not reply to the letter, but ordered it to be archived, and added a note describing Whyte as "An idiot and a degenerate."
[45]
A few years later in 1936, Justice Commissar
Nikolai Krylenko publicly stated that the anti-gay criminal law was correctly aimed at the decadent and effete old ruling classes, thus further linking homosexuality to a right-wing conspiracy, i.e. Tsarist aristocracy and German fascists.
[43]
...
In 1983, a group of 30 Russian gay men met and attempted to organize a gay rights organization under the name «Гей-лаборатория» («Голубая лаборатория») "Gay lab" / ("Blue lab"). At this point, homosexual relations were still punishable by a term of up to five years in prison. The group was put under pressure by the
KGB and finally broke up in 1986.
[56] It was not until later in the
glasnost period that public discussion was permitted about re-legalizing private, consensual adult homosexual relations.
A poll conducted in 1989 reported that homosexuals were the most hated group in Russian society and that 30 percent of those polled felt that homosexuals should be liquidated.
[37] In a 1991 public opinion poll conducted in
Chelyabinsk, 30 percent of the respondents aged 16 to 30 years old felt that homosexuals should be "isolated from society", 5 percent felt they should be "liquidated", 60 percent had a "negative" attitude toward gay people and 5 percent labeled their sexual orientation "unfortunate".
[57]
en.wikipedia.org
