Communism and LGBTQ rights

Communist attitudes towards LGBTQ rights have evolved radically in the 21st century. In the 19th and 20th century, Communist parties and Marxist–Leninist states varied on LGBTQ rights; some Western and Eastern parties were among the first political parties to support LGBTQ rights, while others, especially the post-Lenin era Soviet Union, some of its Eastern Bloc members, and the Marxist–Leninist East Asian countries, harshly persecuted people of the LGBTQ community (especially gay men).

History

Marxism

Early history

Communist leaders and intellectuals took many different positions on LGBTQ-rights issues. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels said very little about sexuality. The Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, volume two, is unequivocal on Marx's and Engels' views of homosexuality, stating: "Marx and Engels were personally homophobic, as shown by an acerbic 1869 exchange of letters on Jean Baptista von Schweitzer, a German socialist rival." But Marx and Engels' exchanges about Schweitzer, though acerbic, are exclusively political in nature and never touch upon his supposed homosexuality, which is never even mentioned. While Marx praised Schweitzer's strength and energy, both Marx and Engels considered him to be overly ambitious. Throughout his entire work, no quotation from Marx can be found concerning homosexuality. Engels, for his part, referred to homosexuality three or four times, all of them in mocking terms.

One of the first important politicians to speak out in favour of gay rights in public debates was the German Marxist and co-founder of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, August Bebel. Although Bebel personally considered same sex relationships to be "against nature", he was among the signatories of Magnus Hirschfeld's petition from the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee to overturn Paragraph 175 from the German penal code.