Neo-Colonialism
During the economic crisis that is now dubbed Shock Therapy, it got so bad that sex exploitation for all genders become quite common, even to the point where children were getting involved en masse. There was extreme wealth inequality and the rich were mostly returning from exile. These people were Putin’s supporters, he could not blame the bourgeoisie for the sex crimes, so he put the blame on the LGBT. Really ps like all r-ists do it not because of attraction but because of the culture of elites to dehumanize and abuse people below them.
Anti-communism comes with a lot of social conservative baggage. It’s necessary really, in order to help justify the social stratifications, ie. social classes, required for capitalism.
It’s not just Russia that has experienced this hard turn into reaction, all formerly socialist nations have experienced this to some extent. Indeed they probably needed to from the perspective of the capitalist class, otherwise people would start asking why the capitalists get to have everything while the workers starve.
Shock therapy
Well with regards to LGBTQ Russia was never progressive, Marxist thought didn’t really have anything to say about LGBTQ rights at the time of the USSR. Also, socialists taking control of a state doesn’t make automatically make everyone inside of it become automatically converted into a socialist or a progressive. Even with state power, changing the views of the general populace can be difficult, and the USSR additionally fell under a bad string of revisionists leaders who rolled back ideological dedication to Marxism.
I also don’t think Russia completely abandoned everything the USSR had going for it. As far as I know Russia’s education system is still pretty inclusive compared to much of the West and they are still up there in regards to healthcare.
The 70’s saw much debate in the party in support for LGBT rights, and the part was close to passing several resolutions to legalize marriage and other rights.
That was swept aside with the horrific policies of Gorbachev and the later shock therapies.
I’m no expert, but the events surrounding Yeltsin’s rise to power and who supported it would give you a pretty good place to start.
Khrushchev coming to power opened the door to increasing liberalization that ended with a neoliberal coup and the dissolution of the soviet union. What followed was economic collapse, widespread poverty and communist organizing absolutely falling apart. It’s very easy to make people turn to reactionary ideas when a revolutionary movement is absent and you need someone or something other than capitalism to blame for the failure of your society.
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, while not entirely dedicated to Russias transition of capitalism, does a good job of outlining the Shock Therapy strategy that was utilized in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Christianity probably
The problem with blaming Christianity itself is that it evacuates the class analysis. Liberals view History as a battle of ideas, with religions representing ideas that they deem “backwards”, so they will say that religions are to blame for reaction. As Marxists we know that History is ultimately a History of class struggle, so we know that religions have been used by the an economic class to prevent systemic change.
You should look into why Russia became anti-lgbt, it was the implementation by Alexander, the Tsar/Monarch in order to secure better trade terms with the christian west; he implemented orthodox christianty, which came with it anti-lgbt reforms.
Prior to this Russia was known to have culture of open polyamory, lesbain and gay relationships socially accepted; its 90% religion tbh, but that obviously was beaten into them as slaves.
We should view these religions with a class lense tho: Christianity was an ideological tool to entrench feudalism / patriarchal rule, womens oppression, repress any sexuality that didn’t conform to feudalism, etc.
Nearly all hunter-gatherer / pre-feudal societies have more progressive family and social relations, and the feudal lords needed to entrench systems of thought to get rid of that.
for sure, the class analysis of this would be the monarch class instilling it in russia through slavery; they would have used there factories, religious structures and whip to make sure this happened; it was a top down IDpol class oppression.
I’m russian and this fact comes as a surprise to me to put it mildly, could you give a source please
Sure!
Sorry for the wikipedia analysis here, but if you look into it you can see how each sucsessive Tsar turned the screw incremently on gay people with more and more reforms against LGBT+ russians.
I think a study of LGBT history globally tbh tends to betray homophobes arguements that being gay is a modern thing, imo when we’re left to our own devices free of class and religious oppression it tends to manifest as socially acceptable; which kind of goes against the ‘its not natural!’ bullshit.
Yeah sorry for not being specific it was specifically the phrase “Alexander… implemented orthodox Christianity” that had me rolling. It happened a bit earlier than that is all.
And the actual crackdowns happened under Nicholas I, specifically as a reaction to secular revolutionary movements in France Germany and Russia at the time. I don’t think he cared much about gay people per se but he wanted to strengthen the church as a bulwark against uprisings, and that meant implementing some religious laws into civil ones.
Yeah thats fair, my understanding of this isnt great; I just knew the gist of that the tsars trended towards implementing reactionary policies but not the detail of it; do you have any good sources on this?
sources on what specifically?
Christianity existed in Russia before and after the Soviet Union
Yes and every time it took huge part in the reaction.
That reactionary ideas thrive in times of reactionary hegemony is obvious. Historical materialism requires that we look first to material conditions to explain the root causes of historical change. If Christianity existed in Russia before, during, and after the Soviet Union, it doesn’t follow that the current social conditions in Russia can be explained by Christianity becoming a more powerful idea at an arbitrary time, forcing an otherwise progressive society to reaction.
If Christianity existed in Russia before, during, and after the Soviet Union, it doesn’t follow that the current social conditions in Russia can be explained by Christianity becoming a more powerful idea at an arbitrary time, forcing an otherwise progressive society to reaction.
Definitely not entirely, but don’t reduce it to just consequence, it’s undialectical.
Revisionism
“The transition from capitalism to communism is an entire historical epoch. Until it is over, exploiters inevitably have hope for restoration, and this hope turns into attempts at restoration. The overthrown exploiters, who did not expect to be overthrown, did not believe in it, did not allow the thought of it, with tenfold energy, with mad passion, with hatred increased 100 times, rush into battle for the return of the “paradise lost”.”
- V.I. Lenin
