The terror produced by such a system explains why it was not until the final years of the Soviet Union (that is, 1989–90) that an authentic Soviet gay movement finally appeared: the Moscow Association of Sexual Minorities was established near the end of 1989, and later became the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Moscow. Then in 1990, in Tallinn (in what would soon become the independent nation of Estonia), an international conference was held on “the status of sexual minorities and the changing attitude towards homosexuality in Europe in the twentieth century.” But while strides were being made, there was still more evidence of Soviet homophobia: in 1989, at the same time a non-Soviet television station broadcast an unprecedented debate on homosexuality, a group of medical students issued a series of ultra-violent messages stating that the “pederasts” did not deserve to be called human and that they should be sent away to special camps. And in 1994, eighteen percent of Russians still believed that homosexuals should be “liquidated” and another twenty-three percent thought they should be “isolated” from mainstream society.
Stalin was not the only communist leader with a violently homophobic streak: the same could also be said of Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro. The Maoist revolution of 1949 was very difficult on homosexuals in China, who were accused of “decadent and Western” behavior (in spite of a rich, indigenous tradition of homosexuality) and were often sent to labor camps for re-education (this included many male opera singers who performed the roles of women). As well, many homosexuals were arrested, subjected to “criticism,” and incarcerated during both the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and as a result of the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing (June 1989). In China, as elsewhere, homophobia and anti-intellectualism went hand-in-hand. Tens of thousands of homosexuals were sent to the Chinese gulag, the
laogai
, although often under the guise of other accusations, usually
treasonous
, (such as foreigners, half-breads, Catholics, Westernized intellectuals), where they were always harshly treated. In
Prisoner of Mao
(1973), Jean Pasqualini (a.k.a. Bao Ruo-Wang) describes the execution of a homosexual repeat offender around 1960: the man had been condemned to the gulag for seven years for his homosexuality, and his sentence was subsequently doubled when he was convicted of theft; when he was later accused of having seduced a fellow prisoner, he was sentenced to death and immediately executed in front of other prisoners. Pasqualini pointed out the impossibility of homosexuality being acted out in the gulags: prisoners risked being summarily shot if they were caught, and besides, most of them were in such a state of malnutrition that they had practically no libido. In this way, Chinese authorities were able to boast that they had successfully eradicated all “unnatural behavior” from China, but of course this was a false claim; in fact, Western psychologists noted with amusement the large numbers of “impotent” citizens appearing in official Chinese statistics. For years, through to the end of the 1980s, the taboo of homosexuality in China remained more or less intact, the result of the regime’s systemic homophobia combined with popular sentiment (in Confucianism, the worst thing a man can do is not produce a son to carry on the family name).
By the beginning of the 1990s, things slowly began to change, though the trail is far from clear given that the evolution has been anything but linear. Gay groups started to form and meeting places were established (notably in Shanghai and Guangzhou); then in 2001, Chinese authorities removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. That said, even though Chinese law no longer recognizes homosexuality as a crime, the gay movement in China has had limited success in promoting itself or having much visibility. As recently as 1996, the Minister of Propaganda announced that homosexual themes were to be banned from all publications, literary or journalistic, although major
media
could now address the issue of homosexuality without being subject to hysteria. And China’s weak judicial culture continues to make life difficult for homosexuals: the
police
still harass them and find pretexts for their arrest, and even illegally extort money from them.
Cuba is another example of communist homophobia: although most homosexuals there supported the revolution in 1959, Fidel Castro soon instituted virulent anti-gay policies, the result of his considering homosexuality to be (like prostitution) a bourgeois and Western perversion. (Efforts to associate vice with the Western world even went so far as declaring that The Beatles were gay.) Homosexuality was declared illegal and punishable by four years’ imprisonment, and parents were expected to turn in their homosexual children to authorities. By the mid-60s, Cuba’s homosexuals—isolated by family and coworkers, branded as
escorias
(“eaters of dead flesh”), and subjected to intense harassment by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution—were interned in camps until Castro sent them on a mass exodus by boat to the United States in 1980; among those sent away was the celebrated writer Reinaldo
Arenas
, who wrote about his time in a sugar cane plantation camp in
El Central
(1981;
El Central: A Cuban Sugarmill
) and
Antes que anochezca
(1992;
Before Night Falls
). The harsh treatment of homosexuals in Cuba began to relax somewhat in the 80s, under the external influence of protests by humanitarian associations and internal influence by East German advisors; finally, in 1992, Castro officially recognized that “homosexuality is a natural tendency that must be respected.” Nonetheless, the status of Cuban homosexuals remains quite ambiguous: homosexual behavior that “incites public
scandal
” is punishable by twelve months in
prison
; homosexuals are not considered worthy of admission into the Communist Party; and there are no authorized homosexual publications or organizations: the Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, created in 1994, was banned in 1997 and its members arrested.
With regard to the Parti communiste française (PCF; French Communist Party): in 1934, under the influence of Stalinism, the PCF became more family-centric and homophobic. Until 1970, its leaders had in common with communists elsewhere in the world the belief that homosexuality was a bourgeois vice, “a tradition foreign to the working class” (to use a phrase of the French General Confederation of Labor), and an unnatural pathology, as suggested by French communist politician Jacques Duclos’ violent outburst in 1971 against members of the gay group Front homosexual d’action révolutionnaire: “Go get treatment, you pederasts; the PCF is healthy!” Within the PCF, homosexuals needed to be extremely discreet: such was the case with writer and Communist Party member Louis Aragon, whom party officials knew only as an author, not the bisexual he was.
In this way, the PCF began to seem increasingly out of step with the rest of society: its ongoing discomfort with the issue of homosexuality was exemplified in a 1976 editorial by Guy Poussy, member of the party’s central committee:
Perversions exist, but this is not a matter for politics nor for the
police
, but rather a matter of medical science…. ‘”Unfettered pleasure” is not part of the revolutionary vocabulary. The majority of French people do not experience a feeling of liberation, but rather one of disgust in the face of perversion and immorality. And with good reason…. Revolution may not be found in barracks, but neither is it found in a brothel.
It has only been through pressure from young members that the Party’s stance on the issue has evolved (essentially between 1985 and 1995), and the current PCF leadership could never be called homophobic, having proven themselves by their call to the fight against
AIDS
and in the debates on the
PaCS
(Pacte civil de solidarité; Civil solidarity pact) domestic partnership proposal.
In these matters, the PCF has a rarely mentioned precursor: the Kommunistiche Partei Deautschlands (KPD; Communist Party of Germany) from 1918 to 1933. During this period, while the gay scene in Germany was flourishing despite the ongoing existence of legal interdiction (the infamous Paragraph 175), the KPD was putting together a combined front of both homosexuals and proletarians who were united against their common persecutors, the members of the ruling class supported by the churches. On numerous occasions (in 1924, 1927, 1929, and 1932), the KPD demanded that the law consider homosexuality and heterosexuality in the same way, and that Paragraph 175 be abrogated (this was one of the reasons why the radical psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich belonged to the Party in 1930). The German communist discourse grew ambiguous by the end of the Weimar Republic once it became clear that a number of homosexuals could be found in the ranks of the Nazis, especially within the SA. But the party line did not officially change until after the advent of Adolf Hitler: it was only in 1934 that the clandestine KPD, under the influence of Moscow, would define homosexuality as a “fascist perversion.”
—Pierre Albertini
Arenas, Reinaldo.
Avant la nuit
. Paris: Julliard, 1992. [Published in the US as
Before Night
Falls. New York: Viking, 1993.]
Arguelles, Lourdes, and Ruby Rich. “Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution: Notes Towards an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience,”
Signs
(1984). Reprinted in
Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past
. Edited by George Chauncey, Martin Duberman, and Martha Vicinus. New York: Meridian, 1990.
Delpla, François. “Les Communistes français et la sexualité (1932–1938),”
Le Mouvement social
91 (1975).
Fourier, Charles.
Vers la liberté en amour
. Texts selected and presented by Daniel Guérin. Paris: Gallimard, “Folio,” 1975.
Karlinsky, Simon. “Russia’s Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of the October Revolution.” In
Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past
. Edited by George Chauncey, Martin Duberman, and Martha Vicinus. New York: Meridian, 1990.
Kon, Igor.
The Sexual Revolution in Russia: From the Age of the Tsars to Today
. New York: The Free Press, 1995.
Pasqualini, Jean.
Prisonnier de Mao, sept ans de camp de travail en Chine
. Paris: Gallimard, 1975.
Vichnevski, Anatoli.
La Faucille et le rouble
,
la modernisation conservatrice en URSS
. Paris: Gallimard, 2000.
—Arenas, Reinaldo; China; Far Right; Fascism; France; Germany; Gulag; Latin America; Russia.
COMMUNITARIANISM
Communitarianism is not a political philosophy but rather a polemical motif which, in France, is used to emphasize,
a contrario
, the reformulation of a culture that is republican, secular, and national, supposedly threatened by anyone questioning its blind spots. “Communitarianism” aims to discredit the politicization of minority issues. It must be pointed out that the history of gay mobilization is not the same as that of “communitarianist reasoning.” The question of communitarianism goes far beyond gays and lesbians, encompassing the struggles of all minorities. One must not jump to the conclusion that all anti-communitarian discussion is necessarily homophobic; this can only be determined on a case by case basis. Besides, anti-communitarianist rhetoric, at least in France, cannot be properly understood without bringing it to the more general level of what French sociologist Eric Fassin has called the “
rhetoric
of America”; the development of the notion of communitarianism in France is more related to the promotion of America as a scarecrow (i.e., something which is supposed to be frightening, but which, in fact, is not at all)—the counter-model for the French Republic—than to the fear of minority issues.
As Fassin has also noted, the concept of the communitarianist
peril
arose in France around 1989. The fall of the Berlin Wall was celebrated by those whose energies had been focused on fighting totalitarianism; at the same time, they suddenly found themselves deprived of their biggest opponent. The same year, there was a virulent debate in France over three female Islamic students who were suspended for not removing their head scarves; for those who agreed with the decision, a new adversary was created that was no longer Soviet totalitarianism: it was American-style multiculturalism and political correctness. Previously admired as a model of liberalism, America became the example pitted against the virtues of secularity and the “French model of republican integration.” Within American university departments, political correctness became the target of a conservative offensive against the power held by minorities suspected of subscribing to the dangerous “French way of thinking” (Derrida, Foucault, etc.). In the French context, the opposition to political correctness paved the way for attacks on minority advocacy groups, which were themselves accused of fomenting social war—between ethnicities, between genders, and between sexualities, all of which, it was said, was evidenced in an America torn apart by ghettoized communities. The accusation of communitarianism was first leveled at ethnic minorities, then was used against feminists, and finally against any gay or lesbian expression of community. On the other hand, the traditional communities—
family
,
class
, nation—were all spared.
The distinction between the public and the private is pivotal to this discussion. There was no question that all people have identities; one can be Basque or Muslim, Jewish or gay. However, those differences were believed to fall within the sphere of private matters. On the contrary, the public sphere, which includes citizenship, is characterized by its indifference to whether or not one is part of this or that group. The anti-communitarianist argument thus makes its claim to be part of the heritage of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution (contrary to the “organic” values of the Ancien Régime whereby the individual did not exist as such and owed his or her rights and obligations solely to being part of a hierarchy of communities). This argument affirms three rules: a universalist norm that postulates that minority rights should be limited to their equality to others; an integrationist principle that regards assimilation and emancipation as one and the same; and a vision of democracy that demands that communication between a nation and its citizens should not be hindered by any other mediation or minority interference. Mobilizations by minority communities thus contradict these rules, and do nothing but stir up trouble between individuals, groups, and cultures; in the specific case of gays and lesbians, anti-communitarians believed they had even less reason to mobilize, since the offense of homosexuality was abolished in 1982 (when the age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals was equalized; thus, gays and lesbians had all the rights they needed).