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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: "Improper Conduct"
Message-ID: <959@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 24-Sep-84 16:11:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.959
Posted: Mon Sep 24 16:11:15 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 07:21:57 EDT
References: <5100@yale.ARPA>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 47

ARGH! NOT ANOTHER BIBLIOGRAPHY!

Although the horror stories are now rolling in & being documented,
no one to my knowledge has written a systematic account of communist
and socialist homophobia, either as institutionalized in ALL societies
with communist regimes or as repeatedly exhibited by leftwing political
groups in nontotalitarian countries (the most famous example of leftist
fagbaiting is the noxious and outrageous attempt to characterize Hitler
and the German Nazis as "queer", a political smear (to German gays) that
appears as early as the 1920s).

Within this last year, the New York Native devoted part of an issue to
Latin America, including Cuba; succeeding issues contain reaction from
readers in the Letters section, especially to an absurd whitewash of
Castro's island prison by two gay leftists.

Activist Allen Young, who went to Cuba in the late 60s with the Venceremos
Brigade to harvest sugarcane, probed officials about policies toward gays,
and found a real can of worms in "progressive" Cuba; he's published a book
on the subject, and written numerous articles and letters.

MARIEL is a journal published by Cuban-Americans of the most recent wave
of emigration, devoted to documenting their experience and the fate of
all who don't fit in Castro's brave new world.

CHRISTOPHER STREET magazine has contained articles on gays in the Soviet
Union and China over the years; the Soviet articles were republished in 
the book anthology THE CHRISTOPHER STREET READER.

The book we should all read is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
(3 pb v.'s, Vintage/Random House, 1800 pp.), even though it contains only
6 miniscule references to homosexuality & its author's social awareness
like many Russians dates from about 1830 (he's ignorant of gay life and
is essentially homophobic).  Altho' the book is the object of many pious
references, few people seem to have actually read it (even tho' a best-
seller) or know the true extent of its indictment (of much that makes up
the 20th century, the world we know & love or hate):  rightwingers are
gratified they finally possess a weapon with real bite, leftwingers would
rather not think about it (isn't the author some kind of neo-czarist kook?),
and "moderates" are 3 books behind in their reading and don't like non-
fiction anyway.

				Pardon the appalling digression,
				Your compulsive bibliographer and
					compiler of lists,

				Ron Rizzo