[lbo-talk] Re: Unequivocal statements by Friedrich Engels (Homophobia from German maoist loons)

dredmond at efn.org dredmond at efn.org
Sat Oct 4 16:42:51 PDT 2003


Quoting Brian Charles Dauth <magcomm at ix.netcom.com>:


> Why have Marxist/Stalinist/Maoist regimes all
> presecuted queers, while capitalist culture has seen the growth of queer
> culture?

I'm not sure that a Marxist regime has ever existed anywhere on the planet. Marxism is a type of critical thinking and social analysis, not an ideology of legitimation or domination.

The short answer is, the Soviet Union, Maoist China and Castro's Cuba were (and still are, to some extent) peasant societies undergoing autarkic industrialization, via authoritarian one-party states. These were all garrison states threatened by imperialism, deeply traumatized by the experience of foreign invasion, and that's hardly fertile ground for an emancipatory micropolitics. It wasn't just queer culture which was repressed: mainland China still doesn't allow independent trade unions, generally considers feminism irrelevant, despite the deeply patriarchal lineage of Chinese culture, etc.

Hasn't Cuba made progress in changing its policies, though?

-- DRR



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