this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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So supporting all sexualities and genders as in USSR or PRC?
A counter example is Cuba is now one of the most progressive countries when it comes to LGTBQ+ rights. Good Communists push to support all sexualities and genders but the material conditions of the country can limit and slow that development.
Russia has been capitalist again for 20+ years and yet it isn’t a bastion of freedom for these groups.
@TrippyFocus Which is, again, extremely recent, and also fraught with contradiction among its voting populace. It has an amazing constitution, but it only barely squeezed through (and is still only that — a constitution).
Russia is not at all stable, nor is the rest of the Soviet bloc. It moved straight from the ossified and besieged socialism of the 70s and 80s into fascism, immediately embracing capitalism in crisis, and that's where it's remained.
I agree! the key point is stability as when people’s basic needs are increasingly met they aren’t as susceptible to reactionary ideas and propaganda that their issues are due to X group.
It takes time and education to change opinions on this stuff unfortunately. Even with Castro’s public support it was still a few years before the constitution was changed because as you said the voting populace still has contradictions.
Capitalism will eventually lead to crisis tho and reactionaries will use those to strip away these rights and target these groups which is why I still think the meme is correct that the only way to get lasting rights for all people is to reject capitalism.
Actually existing socialism will never be good enough because building a new economic system while the Empire tries to stamp it out is hard and inevitably it won't be perfect, and if there are problems then it wasn't worth trying and we should just go back under the boot of capitalism and be grateful it's such a great boot that stomps on us.
@harc almost like material conditions of countries on opposite ends of the globe or literal decades apart make a difference
Since to my understanding, and their occasional border shootout USSR and PRC were not particularly distant, I understand you're pitching them against EU/USA? So bourgeois nation states, one established by religious puritans by means of a continent wide genocide, have some distinct advantage over 70+ years of communism, is your point?
@harc A state being bourgeois is not the only material condition of that state. The west in the 90s saw immense growth and stability, which meant that it could afford more rights to the groups that it had previously marginalized. We're now seeing that rolled back as said stability comes crashing down.
China, meanwhile, is quite new to stability, so we're only now seeing rights there increased. The USSR, one could argue, never really saw stability due to constant sanctions and external threat.
You get that the USSR was actually incredibly accepting of LGBTQ people post revolution, right? It wasn't until Stalin changed that when he took power that they were vilified.
And the PRC they literally have pride parades in Shanghai and Chengdu is like the unofficially accepted LGBTQ home in China. What are you on about?
So a decade? And never really thereafter? The one during which anarchists and unorganized workers were also butchered for struggling for actual self-determination?
We have a yearly pride in my country, just as well as very little rights for LGBTQ and the biggest fascist march in Europe, what are you trying to prove with this? And you well know what I'm on about, as your knee-yerk reaction proves in itself.
Well the point is your claims are patently false. Neither of these projects were ardently anti LGBTQ like you are claiming. Both of them had or have issues but by and large the fact of the matter is these projects were founded broadly on expanding equality for these classes of people.
Hell the Bolsheviks were fuckin pro Trans people in their fight for power.
Not to mention that there are complex geopolitical reasons for why homosexuality in particular were (incorrectly I will add) targeted for repression. For both Stalin and Mao these were tactics aimed around stifling western imperial influence on their plans to further build and free their peoples from the chains of capital. Homosexuality was viewed as trappings of Western imperialism. Let's remember at this same time in the US gay people are treated pretty fucking terribly as well we don't really have room to criticize here as much as we'd love to.
Like you have to understand these decisions in context of the historical upheavals surrounding them. Soviet Russia was under constant attack from the entire world as the worlds first functional socialist nation operating in entirely uncharted waters. Which is not to lend approval to the misgivings of the USSR but to somewhat contextualize them and see how they make some sense from a different perspective. Likewise with Mao they were working to solidify power after an intense revolution and civil war - the logic was very similar.
Obviously China has moved much more towards acceptance but there's still work to be done. LGBTQ culture just isn't expressed the same way the culture just isn't as hyper individualistic as we are used to.
And again let's take a look at the state of the US and how every rights for LGBTQ people are backsliding before we start throwing stones.
I got a shirt for you.
Lmao thanks
If you can't care for some marginalized communities how can anyone trust you to care for them?