Nobody said the USSR shifted to be pro-queer. What was stated was that the USSR was consistently less anti-queer than the west, which is thanks to their overall higher levels of social progressivism. You either misread unintentionally, or are deliberately taking a bad-faith stance. I like to think it’s the former, but only you can answer that.
Beautiful we’ve come full circle to exactly what the point is.
Government doctrine vs cultural norms. It doesn’t matter what the government says, it matters what the culture does. Half of what the USSR and communists claimed to stand for, they did not which is evident in their actions - anti-colonialism/engages in colonialism, pro women’s rights/women still lack representation and feminism repressed, pro worker’s rights/equal exploitation for all.
So maybe it doesn’t matter what the government says, maybe we have to analyze the culture and where it ended up today to see the changes and the impact of that change.
Ideas do not exist independently of their material conditions. By shifting from an analysis of material conditions and the social relations that spring from them to one of “culture,” you are placing ideas outside of their context in material reality, and moving to the realm of supernatural thinking. In other words, this is pure idealism and is anti-scientific. Idealism has more in common with fascism than it does with socialism, so I really do think you should be careful. Fascists use the “culture” argument to argue against immigration, in favor of colonialism, etc.
Nope I’m viewing the whole picture as it is, a whole. The claims and movements of a government do not happen separate from the culture and often you look at the culture to understand the real experience of people living under a government. Many places outlawed things that they didn’t or couldn’t actually enforce - homosexuality, drug use, freedom of speech for examples.
You aren’t viewing the whole picture, though. You’re abstracting the Soviet Union from its historical context and measuring it against standards of an entirely different historical era. Further, again, you are placing far too much of an emphasis on culture while treating it as though it exists independent from the society and the social relations compelled by it. This is an idealist argument, not a materialist one.
Here’s a simple exercise: why did women’s rights dramatically expand upon the implementation of socialism?
Honestly for the same reason it did in the west. There was a massive need for economic resources, manpower. And limiting half your workforce because culture was stupid and everyone realized that.
This is what was happening globally at the time as well. Even before the West made laws to support women in workforces, there were plenty of women working far before that too. Because laws aren’t the only thing that matters, culture does.
And thousands were imprisoned for “pederasty” see: homosexuality into work camps and their stories completely repressed because information control was a massive tenet of the Sovier Union. While today, everyone knows of Alan Turing’s story and he is championed as a hero in the west for what he did because the west did in fact have plenty more freedoms and were much more progressive in many more ways than the soviet union.
Someone else in this thread, maybe you I’m not sure, claimed the west referred to all homosexuals as pedophiles. The Soviet Union did the same. And people today are still acting like they weren’t going after homosexuals, they were only targeting pedophiles which is completely untrue.
The soviet union does not exist today. The soviet union’s treatment of homosexuals was far more leniant than western countries in general, which coincides with being enormously socially progressive when it comes to ethnicity and gender as well. Nobody is arguing that the soviet union of the 1930s was progressive when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community if compared to the US today, but such a comparison is ludicrous to begin with.
It’s worth noting that the USSR ended the Gulag system in the 1960s while capitalist countries like the united states continue to use prison as a means for cheap (practically unpaid) forced labor. Soviet prisoners were also paid comparable wages to free workers not only out of principle but so they would not be severely disadvantaged once out of prison.
You mean prison. Work camp is nonsense used to demonise non western countries as barbaric (and often used in an attempt to evoke images of the nazi extermination machine even when they are not at all the same). Also what was progressive in the 40s 50s and 60s would be regressive by today’s standard yet that doesn’t mean it wasn’t progressive for the time.
Soviet prisons were generally more progressive than western prisons, especially considering western countries were largely colonial powers (and are now neocolonial powers). Soviets even viewed handcuffs as barbaric and paid prisoners wages comparable to outside wages, the compulsion for work was out of a belief that work itself is good. They didn’t treat prison labor the same way the US does today, for pennies a day.
Because there was never a shift ever to be pro-queer. That is a complete lie many people in this thread are trying to push.
Okay.
Nobody said the USSR shifted to be pro-queer. What was stated was that the USSR was consistently less anti-queer than the west, which is thanks to their overall higher levels of social progressivism. You either misread unintentionally, or are deliberately taking a bad-faith stance. I like to think it’s the former, but only you can answer that.
Denmark and Sweden both completely decriminalized same-sex marriages before WWII even ended. So that’s just not true.
Sweden still considered Homosexuality as a mental illness and was a country that practiced eugenics far into the 70s
Beautiful we’ve come full circle to exactly what the point is.
Government doctrine vs cultural norms. It doesn’t matter what the government says, it matters what the culture does. Half of what the USSR and communists claimed to stand for, they did not which is evident in their actions - anti-colonialism/engages in colonialism, pro women’s rights/women still lack representation and feminism repressed, pro worker’s rights/equal exploitation for all.
So maybe it doesn’t matter what the government says, maybe we have to analyze the culture and where it ended up today to see the changes and the impact of that change.
Ideas do not exist independently of their material conditions. By shifting from an analysis of material conditions and the social relations that spring from them to one of “culture,” you are placing ideas outside of their context in material reality, and moving to the realm of supernatural thinking. In other words, this is pure idealism and is anti-scientific. Idealism has more in common with fascism than it does with socialism, so I really do think you should be careful. Fascists use the “culture” argument to argue against immigration, in favor of colonialism, etc.
Nope I’m viewing the whole picture as it is, a whole. The claims and movements of a government do not happen separate from the culture and often you look at the culture to understand the real experience of people living under a government. Many places outlawed things that they didn’t or couldn’t actually enforce - homosexuality, drug use, freedom of speech for examples.
You aren’t viewing the whole picture, though. You’re abstracting the Soviet Union from its historical context and measuring it against standards of an entirely different historical era. Further, again, you are placing far too much of an emphasis on culture while treating it as though it exists independent from the society and the social relations compelled by it. This is an idealist argument, not a materialist one.
Here’s a simple exercise: why did women’s rights dramatically expand upon the implementation of socialism?
Honestly for the same reason it did in the west. There was a massive need for economic resources, manpower. And limiting half your workforce because culture was stupid and everyone realized that.
This is what was happening globally at the time as well. Even before the West made laws to support women in workforces, there were plenty of women working far before that too. Because laws aren’t the only thing that matters, culture does.
Meanwhile Alan Turing was castrated and driven to suicide. I said consistently, not permanently and in all cases.
And thousands were imprisoned for “pederasty” see: homosexuality into work camps and their stories completely repressed because information control was a massive tenet of the Sovier Union. While today, everyone knows of Alan Turing’s story and he is championed as a hero in the west for what he did because the west did in fact have plenty more freedoms and were much more progressive in many more ways than the soviet union.
Someone else in this thread, maybe you I’m not sure, claimed the west referred to all homosexuals as pedophiles. The Soviet Union did the same. And people today are still acting like they weren’t going after homosexuals, they were only targeting pedophiles which is completely untrue.
The soviet union does not exist today. The soviet union’s treatment of homosexuals was far more leniant than western countries in general, which coincides with being enormously socially progressive when it comes to ethnicity and gender as well. Nobody is arguing that the soviet union of the 1930s was progressive when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community if compared to the US today, but such a comparison is ludicrous to begin with.
Work camps are not progressive.
It’s worth noting that the USSR ended the Gulag system in the 1960s while capitalist countries like the united states continue to use prison as a means for cheap (practically unpaid) forced labor. Soviet prisoners were also paid comparable wages to free workers not only out of principle but so they would not be severely disadvantaged once out of prison.
You mean prison. Work camp is nonsense used to demonise non western countries as barbaric (and often used in an attempt to evoke images of the nazi extermination machine even when they are not at all the same). Also what was progressive in the 40s 50s and 60s would be regressive by today’s standard yet that doesn’t mean it wasn’t progressive for the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennady_Trifonov
Okay he’s lying I guess.
Soviet prisons were generally more progressive than western prisons, especially considering western countries were largely colonial powers (and are now neocolonial powers). Soviets even viewed handcuffs as barbaric and paid prisoners wages comparable to outside wages, the compulsion for work was out of a belief that work itself is good. They didn’t treat prison labor the same way the US does today, for pennies a day.
Removed by mod