Marxism and Queer Emancipation
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#MARXISM AND QUEER EMANCIPATION
#Red Star
#28th of December, 2020
Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution. The fundamental reason why all previous revolutionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure to unite with real friends in order to attack real enemies. A revolutionary political party is the guide of the masses, and no revolution ever succeeds when the revolutionary political party leads them astray. To ensure that we will definitely achieve success in our revolution and will not lead the masses astray, we must pay attention to uniting with our real friends in order to attack our real enemies. To distinguish real friends from real enemies, we must make a general analysis of the economic status of the various classes in Chinese society and of their respective attitudes toward the revolution.1 [Our emphasis.]
#1. INTRODUCTION
This document is the policy paper of the Red Star group on the queer question, as a contribution to identifying, reclaiming, and further developing the Mass Line of the Communist Party of Switzerland as part of its General Political Line and basis of unity; this is part of the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Switzerland as a militarized, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Gonzalo's Thought, mainly Gonzalo's Thought Communist Party to launch and lead the People's War in Switzerland for the conquest of political power, as a part of and to serve the proletarian world revolution.
The queer question is a fundamental question of the Mass Line, because queer people are a trench in the struggle of the masses, a mass front. It is a question which, until now, has been left unsolved by Marxism, but this only emphasizes the necessity of creatively applying the ideology of the proletariat to solve new problems.
Fundamentally, the queer question is the question of the origin and development of patriarchal oppression of queer people; the double oppression of queer people in capitalist society; the present queer movement; and the establishment of the Mass Line of the Communist Party, which must be constituted or reconstituted for people's war, depending on the specific conditions of each country and revolution.
In putting forward our standpoint on the queer question, we uphold, defend, and apply, mainly apply, the only and omnipotent ideology of the international proletariat: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo's Thought, mainly Gonzalo's Thought, which must be creatively applied to solve the new problems presented by the proletarian world revolution in general and the Swiss revolution in particular, so as to create a guiding thought and contribute to the inevitable new, fourth, and higher stage of Marxism.
We reaffirm the dialectical-materialist method of analysis and synthesis, as established by our founder, Karl Marx:
Of course, the method of presentation must differ in form from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connection. Only after this work is done can the actual movement be adequately described. If this is done successfully, if the life of the subject matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction.2 [Our emphasis.]
We reaffirm «seeking truth from facts», dispensing with any bourgeois moralism and dogmato-subjectivist prejudice when analysing new problems, as established by Comrade Friedrich Engels:
How is this to be explained? In view of the decisive role which kinship plays in the social order of all peoples in the lower and higher stages of primitive society, the significance of so widespread a system cannot be explained away by mere phrases. A system which is generally prevalent throughout the Americas, which likewise exists in Asia among peoples of an entirely different race, and more or less modified forms of which abound everywhere throughout Africa and Australia, needs to be historically explained, not talked away [...].3 [Our emphasis.]
We reaffirm the fact that dogmato-subjectivism is a danger for the Communists, because not to answer new questions leads one to fall backward into revisionism, as established by the great V.I. Lenin:
The question of the relation of the State to the social revolution, and of the social revolution to the State, like the question of revolution generally, was given very little attention by the leading theoreticians and publicists of the Second International (1889-1914). But the most characteristic thing about the process of the gradual growth of opportunism that led to the collapse of the Second International in 1914 is the fact that, even when these people were squarely faced with this question, they tried to evade it or ignored it.
In general, it may be said that evasiveness over the question of the relation of the proletarian revolution to the State — an evasiveness which benefited and fostered opportunism — resulted in the distortion of Marxism and in its complete vulgarization.4 [Our emphasis.]
We reaffirm the necessity of combating both Right-wing and «Left-wing» opportunism as deviations from the only proletarian line, because they are twins, taking into account which one is the main danger in each specific moment, as Comrade I.B. Stalin taught us:
It should not be forgotten that the Right wing and the «Far Left» are actually twins, that, consequently, both take an opportunist standpoint, the difference between them being that, whereas the Right-wingers do not always conceal their opportunism, the «Left-wingers» invariably camouflage their opportunism with «revolutionary» phrases. We cannot allow our policy to be determined by what scandal-mongers and philistines may say about us. We must go our way firmly and confidently, paying no heed to the tales idle minds may invent about us. The Russians have an apt saying: «The dogs bark, the caravan passes.» We should bear this saying in mind; it may stand us in good stead on more than one occasion.5 [Our emphasis.]
We reaffirm the condemnation of subjectivism in both its two forms, dogmatism and empiricism, which do great harm to the international Communist movement regarding the queer question, by enabling the smuggling of bourgeois ideology like post-modernism and gender metaphysics into the proletarian movement, basing ourselves on what Chairman Mao Zedong established:
Both dogmatism and revisionism run counter to Marxism. Marxism must certainly advance; it must develop along with the development of practice and cannot stand still. It would become lifeless if it remained stagnant and stereotyped. However, the fundamental principles of Marxism must never be violated, or otherwise mistakes will be made. It is dogmatism to approach Marxism from a metaphysical standpoint and to regard it as something rigid. It is revisionism to negate the fundamental principles of Marxism and to negate its universal truth. Revisionism is one form of bourgeois ideology. The revisionists deny the differences between socialism and capitalism, between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. What they advocate is in fact not the socialist line, but the capitalist line. In present circumstances, revisionism is more pernicious than dogmatism. One of our current important tasks on the ideological front is to unfold criticism of revisionism.6 [Our emphasis.]
Finally, we insist on creative application, just as was established in the synthesis of Maoism by Chairman Gonzalo, greatest living Communist on the face of the Earth, rejecting every «defence of the ideology, the class, and the people» which serves nothing but the development of dogmato-revisionist attitudes, ideas, opinions, standpoints, criteria, and lines in the international Communist movement:
As an introduction, and to better understand Maoism and the need to fight for it, let us recall Lenin. He taught us that, as the revolution shifted to the East, it would confront specific conditions which, without negating principles and laws, were nonetheless new situations, and that Marxism could not fail to recognize this fact on pain of leading the revolution to defeat. Despite the uproar raised especially by pedantic and bookish intellectuals full of individualism and false Marxism in opposition to what was newly arising, the only appropriate and correct thing to do was to apply Marxism to the concrete conditions and to resolve the new situations and problems that every revolution necessarily confronts and resolves; this in the face of consternation and hypocritical «defence of the ideology, the class, and the people» put forward by revisionists, opportunists, and renegades, and the enraged and blind attacks by the stultified academics and hacks of the old order, debased by rotten bourgeois ideology and ready to defend the old society on which they were parasites. Furthermore, Lenin expressly stated that the revolution in the East would give rise to new and great surprises that would further shock those who worship known paths and who are incapable of seeing the new; and, as we all know, he entrusted the comrades from the East with resolving problems that Marxism had not yet been able to resolve.7 [Our emphasis.]
We believe that the main danger to the international Communist movement regarding the queer question is dogmato-subjectivism, not revisionism. Those political parties and organizations which have taken up post-modernist ideas in order to answer the queer question belong to the Right wing of the international Communist movement, not the Left wing. The political parties and organizations of the Left wing, however, generally take a dogmatist standpoint and refuse to answer the question creatively, instead insisting on old and prejudiced ideas which have circulated in the international Communist movement for over a century, but which have never been justified on the basis of Marxism. We urge these comrades to rectify their subjectivist approach and to be honest and diligent in their study of the queer question on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo's Thought. These comrades should self-criticize for the mistakes made due to these old and incorrect ideas.
This is not to discount the harmful influence of post-modernism, in particular «queer theory», with which we unfortunately share an important theoretical term, in the international Communist movement. Some political parties and organizations are indeed afflicted by these ideas, because they have chosen to take the ideas of the queer small bourgeoisie as those of the proletariat, instead of attempting to answer the question on the basis of Marxism. As Chairman Mao teaches us, empiricism and dogmatism are two sides of the same, subjectivist coin, and this reflects Stalin's thesis on the twin character of Right-wing and «Left-wing» opportunism; both gender metaphysics and post-modern «queer theory» in the international Communist movement effectively negate that Marxism is capable of answering the queer question, which negates the character of Marxism as an omnipotent science.
Thus, this document is our attempt at laying the basis for this creative application. It is a contribution, because it launches the process of answering the queer question on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo's Thought; nonetheless, it is limited, because this question still requires a long period of time to develop through practice, cognition, and more practice, which must be analysed and synthesized in order to develop Marxism further in this respect.
#2. THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PATRIARCHAL OPPRESSION OF QUEER PEOPLE
The patriarchal oppression of queer people has its origin in the patriarchal family and the patriarchal oppression of women, which appeared together with private property and the State. Thus, its origin and development must be analysed in intimate connection with these fundamental problems. What is fundamental is to study the theses of Marxism on the origin and development of the patriarchal oppression of women, because this is fundamental for grasping the queer question.
#2.1. THE ORIGIN OF PATRIARCHY, CLASS SOCIETY, AND THE STATE
The founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, proved that patriarchy originated alongside private property and the State, in order to enable the male inheritance of property and the reproduction of labour. The patriarchal oppression of queer people, thus, begins in that very same moment: the establishment of the patriarchal family.
Primitive society was a society without exploitation and oppression. In its lower stage, humanity had not yet separated itself completely from nature and was not anatomically modern. Societal progress was based on evolution, while labour only played a secondary part. Lower-level primitive human races, such as the Neanderthals or the not yet anatomically modern Homo Sapiens, developed bisexuality and the taboo against incest as ways to better compete with other races, which respectively allowed for adoption of orphans and the elimination of genetic diseases, and, in the end, only Homo Sapiens remained, having incorporated the others into its race through warfare. There is no evidence of queer-antagonism in savage society, but plenty of evidence which suggests bisexuality as the main form of human attraction. All primates observed in nature have bisexual tendencies, with bonobo apes being fully bisexual; Neanderthals were commonly buried with partners of both sexes, the leading hypothesis being that they were all bisexual; and, despite the influence of patriarchy on the sexual identity of civilized humans, the research of American sexologist Alfred Kinsey, published in 1948 and '53 respectively, showed that:
[...] people are generally not totally homosexual or totally heterosexual, but rather [...] there is a sexual continuum, with people tending to fit not at the extreme ends of the scale (exclusively heterosexual or exclusively homosexual), but closer to the middle. In other words, if a rating of 1 indicated total heterosexuality and 5 indicated total homosexuality, most persons would rate as 2s or as 4s.8 [Our emphasis.]
Labour became decisive in the development of society when humanity entered the higher stage of primitive society. The discovery of tool-making, fire, hunting, agriculture, herding, and metal-working allowed for the creation of a surplus-product from human labour, and the division of labour between male and female human beings grew into a division of classes between slave-owners and slaves, nourished by the slave-owning, patriarchal family and upheld by the slave-owning State. This development brought with it taboos against «deviancy» from the family norms, such as among the Germanic tribes described by Tacitus, who performed ritual sacrifices of homosexuals, but the development was unequal. Among the Celtic tribes, which inhabited the area spanning from Ireland to Anatolia, including Switzerland, homosexuality appears to have been accepted as any other form of love. Aristotle remarked that «most warlike races, except the Celts and a few others who openly approve of male loves».9 And in the Ulster Cycle, a work detailing the Old Irish Mythology, the tale of Ferdiad and Cu Chulainn is told, in which the two warriors fight for seven days while tending to each other's wounds at night. When Ferdiad died, Cu Chulainn exclaimed: «I loved the noble way you blushed, and loved your fine, perfect form. I loved your blue clear eye, your way of speech, your skilfulness.» In primitive Celtic society, therefore, we can establish that there was no patriarchal oppression of such people, no categorization of «divergents» as «queer». Lesbians were accepted and homosexual marriages were held. However, the independent development of the Helvetii in Switzerland was cut short by the Roman conquest and the imposition of the particularly Roman form of patriarchy.
In discussing the question of how the State emerged connected to patriarchy and private property, Lenin stated:
In primitive society, when people lived in small family groups and were still at the lowest stages of development, in a condition approximating to savagery — an epoch from which modern, civilized human society is separated by several thousand years — there were yet no signs of the existence of a State. We find the predominance of custom, authority, respect, the power enjoyed by the elders of the clan; we find this power sometimes accorded to women — the position of women then was not like the downtrodden and oppressed condition of women today — but nowhere do we find a special category of people set apart to rule others and who, for the sake and purpose of rule, systematically and permanently have at their disposal a certain apparatus of coercion, an apparatus of violence, such as as is represented at the present time, as you all realize, by armed detachments of troops, prisons, and other means of subjugating the will of others by force — all that which constitutes the essence of the State.10 [Our emphasis.]
In primitive society, there was a widespread system of «third-gender» institutions. These were systems of acceptance and respect for people who today would be understood as queer: homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender people, asexuals, intersex people, non-binary people, and so on. These institutions persisted into class society in many cases and are today struggling to maintain their traditional rights and privileges against the expansion of bureaucrat capitalism in the Third World. «Third-gender» institutions in primitive society were at once an expression of the privileges afforded to queer people, as well as an expression of the emerging contradiction between queer people and non-queer people, as part of the emerging patriarchal family. Before the appearance of patriarchy, there was no such thing as «queer people», because such a category implies a system of patriarchal oppression, in which men are oppressors and women are oppressed, wherein «divergents» can be identified and oppressed as a supplement to women.
Different cultures had different such «third-gender» institutions, with varying degrees of reject, acceptance, or even privilege associated with being such a person. In many cultures, the traditional roles associated with queer people persisted well into patriarchy, becoming more and more restrictive over time. For instance, pottery shards found near Thebes dating from between 2000 and 1800 BCE list three different human genders: male, female, and sekhet.
Spanish conquistadors in the 18th century noted that, among the native Californians, there were «Indian men who, both here and farther inland, are observed in the dress, clothing, and character of women», who «pass as sodomites by profession», and who «are held in great esteem».11
There are many other such accounts detailing the existence of up to seven different gender roles in one American tribe, which have survived into the present day. As well as examples such as the muxe among the Zapotec people of Mexico, who account for around 6% of the population in some communities, and are biological males who live as something similar to women. The Dineh people in the United States recognize four genders: masculine man, feminine man, masculine woman, and feminine woman.
These and other traditional «third-gender» institutions are present in many Third World countries, because the patriarchal oppression of feudalism or semi-feudalism, while more brutal, is also less systematized than that of capitalism. In Albania, there are the burrnesha, or «sworn virgins»: biological females who live completely as men at the cost of pledging chastity. In South Asia, there are the hijra, semi-religious communities of biological males who live as women or something different entirely. In Thailand, the kathoeys occupy the role of a third gender, but fight to be recognized as women in their own right. And among the Ndongo people of Angola, who used to rule their own kingdom before the Portuguese conquest, there are the chibados, biological males who live as women or something similar, are regarded as a caste in themselves, powerful shamans, and were employed by Queen Nzinga of Ndongo as both her generals and concubines.
Such «third-gender» institutions are a relic of the period before patriarchal oppression of queer people, persisting into the modern day through the continued existence of feudalism or even pre-feudal modes of production in the Third World, because the patriarchal norms of pre-capitalist modes of production are less systematized. However, we must not understand «third-gender» institutions as something progressive; they are a legitimate and respected part of the society in which they exist, they must be defended against the lumpen-pogromist violence which bureaucrat capitalism creates at the service of imperialism, but they are not part of the proletarian solution to the queer question and must be viewed as part of the semi-feudal basis and superstructure. The proletariat has its own solution, as we will elaborate. What «third-gender» institutions imply, more than anything else, is the existence of a contradiction in the higher stage of primitive-communal society — {queer people ↔ patriarchy} — which did not exist in the lower stage of primitive-communal society and became antagonistic with the appearance of civilized society.
In synthesis, being queer was the predominant mode of sexuality in savagery, while it became a secondary mode in barbarism, laying the basis for patriarchal oppression. Bisexuality is the natural form of human attraction, which the existence of patriarchy has changed; thus, while there is a biological basis for queerness, the societal aspect is primary in determining whether or not one is queer.
The moment of transition from primitive society to slavery, which was the moment in which private property, the State, and the patriarchal family were established, was described by Engels as follows:
Thus, as wealth increased, it, on the one hand, gave the man a more important status in the family than the woman, and, on the other hand, created a stimulus to utilize this strengthened position in order to overthrow the traditional order of inheritance in favour of the children. But this was impossible as long as descent according to mother right prevailed. This had, therefore, to be overthrown, and it was overthrown. It was not so difficult to do this as appears to us now. For this revolution — one of the most far-reaching ever experienced by humanity — did not have to affect one single living member of a clan. All the members could remain what they had been previously. The simple decision sufficed that, in the future, the descendants of the male members should remain in the clan, but that those of the female members were to be excluded from the clan by being transferred to that of their father. The reckoning of descent through the female line and the right of inheritance through the mother were thus overthrown and male lineage and right of inheritance from the father instituted. [...]
The overthrow of mother right was the world-historic defeat of the woman. The man seized the reins in the house, too, the woman was degraded, enthralled, became the slave of the man's lust, a mere instrument for breeding children. This humiliated position of women, especially manifest among the Greeks of the Heroic and still more of the Classical Age, has become gradually embellished and dissembled, and, in part, clothed in a milder form, but by no means abolished.
The first effect of the sole rule of the men that was now established is shown in the intermediate form of the family which now emerges, the patriarchal family.3 [Our emphasis.]
Is it difficult to understand that such a systematization of the patriarchal oppression of women would also necessitate a systematization of those who diverge from patriarchal norms, both those seen as men and as women by society? Queer people were born in the very same moment that «the world-historic defeat of the woman»3 took place, because there cannot be a forced oppressor and oppressed in the family without a system to punish those who refuse to participate.
#2.2. SLAVERY AND THE PATRIARCHAL OPPRESSION OF QUEER PEOPLE
With the establishment of slavery, the slave-owning State and the slave-owning, patriarchal family, it became necessary to systematize the sexual customs of primitive society and to codify them as law and religion. If a culture had been queer-antagonistic prior to the establishment of slave society, it continued to be so; if a culture had been queer-accepting, it would at least have to limit its acceptance, so that the slave-owning, patriarchal family would still function. Thus, the category «queer» was established, as a category of those who qualitatively diverged from the norms and laws of the patriarchal family, although this category had different names or no name at all across time and place.
We emphasize that only those who qualitatively diverge, as in those who are not able to be part of the patriarchal family in the society in which they live, are considered queer. Those who quantitatively diverge may experience ridicule or harassment, but they are not subject to an entire system of patriarchal oppression. Thus, there is a key difference between queer people, on the one hand, and non-queer people who diverge from certain norms or laws, on the other hand.
During the lower stage of slavery, the State only covered the area of a single or a few cities. The slaves were owned in common by the citizens or owned privately by a family. Women were subjected to their husbands and fathers through the family. Ancient Greece is typical of this stage of slavery. In Ancient Greece, the patriarchal oppression of queer people began as a supplement to the exploitation and oppression of women. A man could be homosexual if he fulfilled his duty as husband by fathering children, and being the receiving partner during sex was frowned upon, because it degraded him to the state of a woman. Only a slave or a child should be the receiving partner. This was the despicable system of pederasty, the only accepted form of homosexuality. Nonetheless, this was not the law, and life-long relationships were allowed to develop from pederastic relationships. On the other hand, lesbianism was permitted, and, in some cases, celebrated, but only among those women who either had property of their own (such as the poet Sappho) or could not marry (such as priestesses).
The Roman conquest of Switzerland brought with it slavery as the mode of production, the State (which first took the government form of a slave-owning republic and then of a slave-owning empire) and patriarchy. Lenin characterizes the slave-owning mode of production in relation to its State, which applies to Rome:
[...] the slave-owning State, an apparatus which gave the slave-owners power and enabled them to rule over the slaves. Both society and the State were then on a much smaller scale than they are now, they possessed incomparably poorer means of communication — the modern means of communication did not then exist. Mountains, rivers, and seas were immeasurably greater obstacles than they are now, and the State took shape within far narrower geographical boundaries.10
From Lenin's characterization of the State as a State confined within relatively narrow boundaries and a narrow circle of action, we can also understand the character of patriarchy as something less systematized, with relatively narrow boundaries and a narrow circle of action, however nonetheless something necessary to uphold slavery as the mode of production. Patriarchy served two functions:
- First, the reproduction of slaves.
- Second, the transfer of property through inheritance.
This was the economic basis of patriarchy in the Roman Empire. This necessitated the establishment of certain gender norms, «a set of social relations»,12 as Chairman Gonzalo puts it, defining what a man was and what a woman was in Roman society. This established also the condition of being queer.
The condition of queer people in Rome was that of ever-increasing restrictions imposed as cultural norms and political laws — in short, oppression. Whereas homosexuality had been unconditionally accepted under Celtic rule, it became conditional under Roman rule and had to serve the preservation of slavery. A woman could not be homosexual, because that would negate her role as the mother. The lesbian poet Sappho, who had been revered in Greece, was ridiculed as «lustful», «masculine», and a «courtesan», and lesbianism was condemned by Ovid as «a desire known to no one, freakish, novel [...] among all animals, no female is seized by desire for another female».13 A man could be homosexual, but he would lose all respect and rights if he were penetrated; thus, the acceptable form of male homosexuality was that of a slave-owning man penetrating a boy or a male slave (that is to say, rape), and anything else would be considered queer, and those perpetrating it would be oppressed. Thus, accepted homosexuality in Rome was part of patriarchy, and non-patriarchal homosexuality was shunned. In addition, the roles of man and woman were made more rigid, and those who diverged from them were oppressed; as an example, we can cite Empress Elagabalus, who was transgender and quite possible assassinated for being queer.
With the increasing influence of Christianity, the ideological expression of the feudal landlord class which was increasingly developing among the Germanic parts of the Roman Empire, the idea of «acceptable» homosexuality was completely crushed. During the 3rd century, laws were passed to regulate homosexual relationships; during the 4th century, men who were penetrated were to be burned alive; and, following the feudal revolutions in both the Germanic West and in the Eastern Roman Empire, homosexuality was made completely illegal by Emperor Justinian the First in the 5th century.
In synthesis, slavery established a systematized patriarchal oppression of queer people, first through the establishment of queer-antagonistic cultural norms (as in Greece), and then the establishment of increasingly restrictive laws (as in Rome).
#2.3. FEUDALISM AND THE PATRIARCHAL OPPRESSION OF QUEER PEOPLE
The feudal revolutions in Europe led to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the establishment of the Byzantine State in the Eastern Roman Empire. The ruling ideology of feudal Europe became firmly established as Christianity, which inherited strong patriarchal ideas from both Judaism and the later Germanic influence. In characterizing the feudal State, Lenin said:
The change in the form of exploitation transformed the slave-owning State into the feudal State. This was of immense importance. In slave-owning society, the slaves enjoyed no rights whatsoever and were not regarded as human beings; in feudal society, the peasants were bound to the soil. The chief distinguishing feature of serfdom was that the peasants (and, at that time, the peasants constituted the majority; the urban population was still very small) were considered bound to the land — this is the very basis of «serfdom». The peasants might work a definite number of days for themselves on the plots assigned to them by the feudal lords; on the other days, the peasant serfs worked for their lords. The essence of class society remained — society was based on class exploitation. Only the owners of the land could enjoy full rights; the peasants had no rights at all. In practice, their condition differed very little from the condition of slaves in the slave-owning State. Nevertheless, a wider road was opened for their emancipation, for the emancipation of the peasants, since the peasant serfs were not regarded as the direct property of the lords. They could work part of their time on their own plots, could, so to speak, belong to themselves to some extent; and, with the wider opportunities for the development of exchange and trade relations, the feudal system steadily disintegrated and the scope of emancipation of the peasantry steadily widened. Feudal society was always more complex than slave society. There was a greater development of trade and industry, which even in those days led to capitalism. In the Middle Ages, feudalism predominated. And here, too, the forms of State varied, here, too, we find both the monarchy and the republic, although the latter was much more weakly expressed. But always the feudal lords were regarded as the only rulers. The peasant serfs were deprived of absolutely all political rights.10 [Our emphasis.]
In feudal society, patriarchy evolved to suit the mode of production. This, however, was not the same everywhere, and feudal patriarchy, while in essence the same, took different forms in different parts of the world according to cultural characteristics. The establishment of organized religions played a large role in this process.
The feudal-patriarchal oppression of queer people took different forms depending on the culture guiding the specific feudal society and State. In Europe, the Christian ideology nourished the queer-antagonistic norms present in Germany, which led to the establishment of severe punishment for any form of queer conduct. In Catholic Europe, this took the form of sodomy laws, which criminalized all non-procreative sex equally (this of course had the effect of criminalizing all queer sex and only some non-queer sex). In mediaeval France, sex between men was punished first by castration, then dismemberment, then burning alive; lesbian sex was punished by dismemberment and then burning alive, which shows that lesbianism was viewed as the bigger threat, because it negated the feudal-patriarchal family completely. However, with Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, Christian queer-antagonism reaches a qualitatively higher level through the condemnation of homosexual attraction, not sex, as a sin in itself, and the specific persecution of queers as opposed to «sodomites» in Europe becomes stronger with the appearance of Lutheranism and the absolutist monarchies, which brought with them the practice of witch-burnings, including burning queer people alive. From the despicable practice of witch-burnings comes the English term «faggot», which refers to the Tudor practice of using gay men as «firewood» for the witch-burning pyres. This also serves as a fitting metaphor for the relationship between the patriarchal oppression of women and that of queer people.
In feudal China and in the Islamic world, the system of patriarchal oppression of queer people was different. In these places, queer relationships were common among the peasants, and, among the aristocratic class, they were accepted as long as the people involved also participated in feudal-patriarchal families and raised children. Both the historians Sima Qian and Pan Gu speak of queer emperors and military leaders, and the novel The Dream of the Red Chamber contains several bisexual characters. In Fujian Province, there was a widespread system of queer marriages among the peasants, which did not disappear until the 19th century. However, sodomy laws were also introduced during the Ming Dynasty, which were strengthened during the later Manchu rule.
From this, it can be seen that feudal patriarchy does not necessarily imply the harsh anti-queer repression which existed in mediaeval Europe. However, only those forms of homosexuality which did not get in the way of the reproduction of labour and the inheritance of property were permitted. It was the specific ideology of Christianity which brought with it the harsh anti-queer views which persisted in Europe during feudalism and which imperialism has inherited.
#3. THE DUAL OPPRESSION OF QUEER PEOPLE
In capitalist society, queer people are oppressed twice: as proletarians and as queer people. There is no special economic exploitation of queers beside their exploitation as proletarians; the economic basis of the patriarchal dual oppression of queer people lies in the bourgeois-patriarchal nuclear family unit and the patriarchal dual exploitation and oppression of women under capitalism. Therefore, what is fundamental is to grasp the theses of Marxism on the patriarchal double exploitation and oppression of women, since this is fundamental in grasping the queer question.
#3.1. THE BOURGEOIS-PATRIARCHAL FAMILY
In capitalist society, patriarchy is characterized by the dual exploitation and oppression of women. Their incorporation into industry lays the basis for their politicization and thus emancipation, but they are not emancipated under capitalism, which still needs to fulfil the two conditions for the existence of patriarchy:
- First, reproduction of labour.
- Second, inheritance of property.
Thus, the bourgeois family is established:
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.
The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.14 [Our emphasis.]
Because the bourgeois family is based on the inheritance of private property, it only fully exists among the bourgeoisie. In this sense, the proletariat has a «practical absence of the family».14 However, among the proletariat, a patriarchal family nonetheless exists in order to serve the purpose of the reproduction of labour. It is precisely this bourgeois family unit which is the economic basis for the patriarchal oppression of queer people — while bourgeois queer people are permitted to be queer as long as they marry, reproduce once or twice, and act «proper» in public, proletarian queer people are not, because they must constantly focus on reproducing as much labour-power as possible for the capitalists. Thus arises the specifically capitalist dual oppression of queer people: oppression as proletarians and oppression as queer people. This oppression as queer people takes many forms: sodomy laws, forced homelessness, unemployability, forced prostitution, domestic abuse, and, a particular favorite of the bourgeoisie in countries where queer rights were conquered in name only, pogromist violence, carried out by lumpen elements influenced by the ideology of patriarchy. However, in capitalist society, we find no particular dual exploitation of queer people; the economic basis for oppression of queer people is the dual exploitation and oppression of women, and there is no special exploitation of queer people beyond that as proletarians.
#3.2. STATE OPPRESSION OF QUEER PEOPLE
In characterizing capitalist society in relation to the State, Lenin said:
To understand the struggle that has been started against world capital, to understand the nature of the capitalist State, we must remember that, when the capitalist State advanced against the feudal State, it entered the fight under the slogan of liberty. The abolition of feudalism meant liberty for the representatives of the capitalist State and served their purpose, inasmuch as serfdom was breaking down and the peasants had acquired the opportunity of owning as their full property the land which they had purchased for compensation or in part by quit-rent — this did not concern the State: it protected property irrespective of its origin, because the State was founded on private property. The peasants became private owners in all the modern, developed States. Even when the landowners surrendered part of their land to the peasants, the State protected private property, rewarding the landowners by compensation, by letting them take money for the land. The State as it were declared that it would fully preserve private property, and the State accorded it every support and protection. The State recognized the property rights of every merchant, industrialist, and manufacturer. And this society, based on private property, on the power of capital, on the complete subjection of the propertyless workers and working masses of the peasantry, proclaimed that its rule was based on liberty. Combating feudalism, it proclaimed freedom of property and was particularly proud of the fact that the State had ceased, supposedly, to be a class State.
Yet the State continued to be a machine which helped the capitalists to hold the poor peasants and the working class in subjection. But, in outward appearance, it was free. It proclaimed universal suffrage, and declared, through its champions, preachers, scholars, and philosophers, that it was not a class State. Even now, when the Socialist Council Republics have begun to fight the State, they accuse us of violating liberty, of building a State based on coercion, on the suppression of some by others, whereas they represent a popular, democratic State. And now, when the socialist world revolution has begun, and when the revolution has succeeded in some countries, when the fight against world capital has grown particularly acute, this question of the State has acquired the greatest importance and has become, one might say, the most burning one, the focus of all present-day political questions and political disputes.10 [Our emphasis.]
And, in characterizing the Swiss capitalist State in particular, with its reactionary militia and open rule by the financial capitalists, and contrasting it to the need for socialist revolution, he further said:
You say that your State is free, whereas, in reality, as long as there is private property, your State, even if it is a democratic republic, is nothing but a machine used by the capitalists to suppress the workers, and the freer the State, the more clearly is this expressed. Examples of this are Switzerland in Europe and the United States in the Americas. Nowhere does capital rule so cynically and ruthlessly, and nowhere is it so clearly apparent, as in these countries, although they are democratic republics, no matter how prettily they are painted and notwithstanding all the talk about labour democracy and the equality of all citizens. The fact is that, in Switzerland and the United States, capital dominates, and every attempt of the workers to achieve the slightest real improvement in their condition is immediately met by civil war. There are fewer soldiers, a smaller standing army, in these countries — Switzerland has a militia and every Swiss has a gun at home, while, in the United States, there was no standing army until quite recently — and so, when there is a strike, the bourgeoisie arms, hires soldiery, and suppresses the strike; and nowhere is this suppression of the working-class movement accompanied by such ruthless severity as in Switzerland and the United States, and nowhere does the influence of capital in parliament manifest itself as powerfully as in these countries. The power of capital is everything, the stock exchange is everything, while parliament and elections are marionettes, puppets... But the eyes of the workers are being opened more and more, and the idea of Council Government is spreading farther and farther afield, especially after the bloody carnage we have just experienced. The necessity of a relentless war on the capitalists is becoming clearer and clearer to the working class.10 [Our emphasis.]
In the context of capitalism, a society based on the production of commodities, not as products for use, but as products for sale, a society of exploitation in which the State is nothing but an instrument for exploitation and oppression, in particular the Swiss State, this rotten expression of Old Swissness. And in such a mode of production, upheld by such a State, patriarchal exploitation and oppression is sharpened to a large degree.
But repression and resistance form a contradiction, and the anti-queer oppression of the Middle Ages was met with resistance during the bourgeois-democratic revolutions. During the Great French Revolution, starting in 1789, there were riots and demonstrations carried out by queer masses in Paris. As a result of this, homosexuality was decriminalized by the revolutionary government in 1791. This was a great conquest for the queer masses in France, but it would be taken away once more during the feudal restoration in 1815. The decriminalization of homosexuality in France, however, was not the result of the «liberty» which the capitalist State proclaims — after all, capitalism brought sharpened repression with it — it was something conquered by the masses based on their class instinct.
In Britain, the oppression of queer people developed harshly during the 18th and 19th centuries, even before the appearance of imperialism. The so-called «Molly Houses», underground social clubs and bars for gay men, which had sprung up in England during the 17th century, experienced a period of raids and repression; in 1726, three men were hanged after being arrested during a raid. In 1810, 27 men were arrested on suspicion of sodomy. When the death penalty for sodomy was repealed in 1861, 8'921 men had already been prosecuted, 404 sentenced to death, and 56 executed, since 1806. But the abolition of the death penalty was soon replaced, in 1885, which prohibited not only gay sex, but any homosexual act between men. The result of this repression was generally that queer people hid their condition from family, boss, police, and so on, and lived their lives «in the closet», which is still the case today. For instance, lesbians in the United States in the 19th century typically lived in «Boston marriages», where they simply portrayed themselves as «close friends», which worked due to the view of women as asexual beings fit only for reproduction with males. Nonetheless, lesbian and asexual women would face repression for not entering into marriages with men, and their rights were reduced as a result.
In Germany, where homosexuality had been decriminalized during the 18th century, queer people suddenly faced a period of more developed repression upon the establishment of the Reich in 1871. Paragraph 175 of the Penal Code criminalized homosexuality. Slowly, a bourgeois-led movement for the abolition of this paragraph began developing.
#3.3. QUEER-ANTAGONISTIC IDEOLOGY
The ideological oppression of queer people is part of the patriarchal oppression they face. While the essence of the ideological oppression of women is the conception of the «inferior nature of women», the essence of the ideological oppression of queer people is the conception of the «degenerated» or «divergent» elements, who are to be forcefully integrated with or purged from patriarchal society «for the health of the people». This conception is White, reactionary, rotten, bourgeois ideology, which does not find hold in the proletariat, but only among the lumpen-proletariat and the most backward parts of the masses.
This ideological oppression is the source of reactionary pogroms against queer people, which is carried out by lumpen and encouraged by the old States, be they imperialist or bureaucrat-feudal. The assault, rape, and murder of queer people all over the world is the result of the imperialist, bureaucrat, and comprador bourgeoisie enforcing patriarchal oppression more or less indirectly. It is being spread by imperialism, for instance through propaganda by Yankee missionaries in Sub-Saharan Africa, who initiated anti-queer pogroms in Uganda, or propaganda by the Salafist Islamists, who, based in the bureaucrat-feudal States of the Arabian Peninsula, do the bidding of the imperialist superpowers and powers in countries like Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Mali, and Somalia. In India, anti-queer pogroms, including pogroms against hijra people, are being encouraged by the BJP Hindu-Fascists and carried out by lumpen gangs of Saffron terrorists. All of these examples are part of the genocide of the oppressed peoples, particularly the genocide of queer people, in order to enforce imperialism and patriarchy.
In the imperialist States of Europe and North America, Christianity plays a particularly important role in the ideological oppression of queer people. As we established, the queer-antagonism inherent to Christianity has its origins in the patriarchal ideas of Judaism, but was developed further through the Christianization of the Germanic tribes of Europe, who already practiced reactionary violence against queers. Planted in this rotten soil, the Christian ideas about «sodomy» and «sin» could grow into poisonous weeds, the main driving force in the ideology of queer-antagonism, which today is dominant in Switzerland, the United States, Britain, and many other imperialist States, as well as propagated in the oppressed nations.
In synthesis, queer-antagonistic ideology is bourgeois and serves to guide the patriarchal oppression of queer people through reactionary legislation and lumpen-pogromist violence. Its main form is Christianity in Europe and the Americas, while it takes other forms in other parts of the world.
But there is another form of queer-antagonistic ideology, which is present in the proletarian movement — both in the labour movement and in the international Communist movement. This is the problem of gender metaphysics, or queer-antagonistic revisionism. Gender metaphysics is essentially the negation of the queer question by either talking it out of existence or portraying queer people as «degenerates» by using «Marxist» terminology. It means smuggling bourgeois-patriarchal prejudice into the proletariat through phrase-mongering. Important specific aspects of gender metaphysics include the idea that transgender people cannot materially become their desired gender and therefore are just «ruining their bodies»; that queer people cannot be Communists, because «homosexuality is a bourgeois, individualist ideology»; and that a marriage is between a man and a woman, meaning that «homosexuals don't struggle against patriarchy in their personal lives».15
We already stated above that queer-antagonism only takes hold among the most backward parts of the masses, such as the labour-aristocracy and semi-lumpen elements. We hold that this is true, and develop it further with regards to the labour-aristocracy of which Lenin speaks:
_Obviously, out of such enormous super-profits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their «own» country), it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour-aristocracy._ And that is just what the capitalists of the «developed» countries are doing: they are bribing them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert.
This stratum of bourgeoisified workers, or the labour-aristocracy, who are quite philistine in their lifestyle, in the size of their earnings, and in their entire worldview, is the main prop of the Second International, and, in our days, the main social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, they inevitably, and in no small numbers, take the side of the bourgeoisie, of «Versailles» against the «Commune».16 [Our emphasis.]
Gender metaphysics is particularly dangerous, because it can and will be imported into the Communist political parties and organizations unless combated on the basis of Marxism. Gender metaphysics is essentially to focus on the defence of the bourgeois family unit; not because it is viewed as bourgeois-patriarchal (which is its essence), but because proletarians participate in it and their families are under attack by the «practical absence of the family among the proletariat»,14 and it is viewed as the best economic basis for both the survival of the class and the two-line struggle against patriarchal ideology in the mind of the man. This was the argument put forward by Comrade Stalin and later the revisionists Enver Hoxha and Bob Avakian, when they were still Communists, and used to justify queer-antagonistic standpoints.
We are against gender metaphysics as a form of dogmato-revisionism; its economic basis is the forced impoverishment of the queer masses, which holds back their integration with the labour movement; its political basis is the presence of a bourgeois «LGBT+ movement», which raises identity politics and cultural debasement (encouragement and defence of paedophilia, pornography, «BDSM», and so on) alien to the proletariat; and its ideological basis is the lack of creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo's Thought, mainly Gonzalo's Thought, to solve the queer question. It is in the interest of the labour-aristocracy to defend the bourgeois-patriarchal nuclear family unit, because it profits from it and is permitted by the monopoly bourgeoisie to not be affected by the «practical absence of the family among the proletariat».14
The transgender question in particular is a specific question within the general queer question which it is necessary to solve. It is part of the queer question, because transgender people qualitatively diverge from the bourgeois-patriarchal nuclear family unit. But the transgender question also has its own specific contradictions. The specific fundamental contradiction of the transgender question is the contradiction between a transgender person's gender identity (which is generally determined by the body map, or Homunculus, located in the brain) and that person's physical body (which is generally determined by fetal development based on chromosomes). This contradiction is biological, not social, and is solved through medically transitioning to the desired sex. This contradiction is expressed as gender dysphoria. The specific main contradiction of the transgender question is the contradiction between a transgender person's physical body and the patriarchal oppression of queer people. This contradiction is social, not biological, and is solved through the abolition of the patriarchal institutions of gender and sexuality in Communism. This contradiction is expressed, on the one hand, as internal social gender dysphoria, and, on the other hand, as an external patriarchal oppression. Some transgender people don't have decidedly male or female body maps. These people are called non-binary, and still face the contradictions stated above, which are solved with the same methods. The biological contradiction between male and female is only the basis for the social contradiction between men and women, from which the contradiction between queers and non-queers is derived. Communism will abolish the contradictions between men and women and queers and non-queers. The contradiction between male and female can only be solved through the development of the productive forces and scientific experiment, not by changes in society. Transgender people materially become their desired sex when they transition, because hormone replacement treatment, sexual reassignment surgery, voice training, and so on, all alter both the primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Thus, consciousness affects matter. It is gender metaphysics to insist that one's sex cannot change. The Communist political parties and organizations must open their ranks to transgender people and other queers, accept and respect their identity and assist them with transitioning. Transgender women, like all queer women, must be able to participate in and lead the queer movement, women's movement, and proletarian and mass movements in general. The proletariat must raise the specific daily demands of transgender people, such as the right and access to medical transition, as part of the daily demands of queers and the masses in general. Trans-antagonism is a particularly sharp form of queer-antagonism, which raises the idea of the «degenerated queer» to a qualitatively higher level. It is part of bourgeois-patriarchal ideology and the ideological oppression of queers, serving the ideological oppression of women. Trans-antagonism against transgender women in particular is fused with the ideological oppression of women to a large degree and must be combated in the women's movement.
In synthesis, the labour-aristocracy is the basis for the presence of gender metaphysics in the proletarian movement, metaphysics which must be combated by the Communists on the basis of a Marxist standpoint on the queer question.
#3.4. IMPERIALISM AND THE DUAL OPPRESSION OF QUEER PEOPLE
Imperialism was clearly defined by Lenin:
Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is three-fold. Imperialism is:
- First, monopoly capitalism.
- Second, parasitic, or decaying, capitalism.
- Third, moribund capitalism.
The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five main forms:
- First, cartels, syndicates and trusts — the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists.
- Second, the monopolistic position of the big banks — three, four, or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of the United States, France, and Germany.
- Third, seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital).
- Fourth, the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over 100 such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it «amicably» among themselves — until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial political partition of the world.
- Fifth, the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.
Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism in North America and Europe, and later in Asia, took final shape in the period 1898-1914. The Spanish-American War (1898), the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), and the economic crisis in Europe in 1900 are the chief historical landmarks in the new era of world history.17 [Our emphasis]
The patriarchal oppression of queer people has reached a qualitatively higher level in imperialist society. As a response, the queer emancipation movement has grown and become more combative under imperialism, in particular during periods of international revolutionary upswing, like the 1920s, '60s, and '70s, and the 2010s and '20s. The bourgeois «nuclear family» is upheld as the standard, and, even in countries where queer people have conquered a large amount of daily demands, they are still only permitted to be queer when they enter into bourgeois families themselves and participate as auxiliaries in the reproduction of labour, for instance, through adoption of orphaned children.
With the appearance of imperialism, fascism also appeared on the scene, with its three aspects:
- First, militarization of the old State.
- Second, corporatism to replace parliamentarism.
- Third, ideological eclecticism.
Fascism is being developed more and more by the imperialist States, both through the growth of fascist movements based in the lumpenproletariat, and through the reactionization of the old States. Part of this is the increasing corporatization of the queer masses in order to negate their conquered rights. As an example, the sharp repression against queer people in the German Empire gave way to a period of both mass-led struggles to conquer rights, but also bourgeois-led struggles to corporatize the queer masses and limit their rebellion, during the so-called Weimar Republic. The movement for queer rights, originally led by the Social-Democratic Party under August Bebel, was taken over by liberal democrats, such as Magnus Hirschfeld and Adolf Brand. The Institute for Sexual Science was established by Hirschfeld in 1919, which, on the one hand, carried out agitation and propaganda for the legalization of homosexuality and protected queer people from State repression, but, on the other hand, directly collaborated with the Prussian-led State to corporatize queer people, for instance, through issuing «permits» for homosexuals and transgender people, recognized by the police. This example shows the duality of the small bourgeoisie and the need for proletarian leadership. The corporatization of queer people is a general tendency in the old bourgeois democracies, such as in Denmark, where the previously decentralized medical treatment of transgender people was banned in 2009 and put under the direct control of the queer-antagonistic «Sexological Clinic», which likened queer people to paedophiles; in imperialist States in general, queer people are made dependent on the State for purposes of adoption, artificial insemination, sexual reassignment surgery, hormone treatment, legal gender change, and so on, and the imperialists do their best to maintain control of these services, which were conquered by the masses, instead of giving the people democratic control over them.
The presence of imperialism, and particularly imperialist wars and world wars, gives rise to an increased militarization of the old States, which is expressed through the development of a generalized genocide of queer people in the entire world, which is unevenly developed. The developments in Germany during the 1920s and '30s, and especially the failure of the Communist Party of Germany under the leadership of Comrade Thälmann to creatively apply Marxism to the conditions of the German revolution, lead the queer emancipation struggle in service of the proletarian revolution, in particular, and, in general, to wage the revolutionary war for the conquest of political power, led to the Nazi-Fascist government takeover in 1933 and the period of the most ruthless fascism in world history. This had enormous repercussions for the entire people, the masses, and the proletariat in Germany and all of Europe and the world. The Holocaust was unfolded as a generalized genocide of the peoples in service of German imperialism to gain Lebensraum [living space], in particular a genocide of the Jewish people. The genocide of queer people was another aspect of the Holocaust. Queer people, who had before maintained some degree of rights, were sent to concentration camps immediately in 1933; gay men and transgender women were marked with the pink triangle and systematically exterminated, while lesbians and transgender men were marked with the «anti-social» black triangle. Up to 100'000 queer people were exterminated by the Nazi-Fascists. When Europe was liberated by the Red Army in 1945, the queer people still alive in the Nazi-Fascist concentration camps were re-incarcerated in the very same camps by the West German State, and it was not until 1994 that homosexuality was made legal in the Federal Republic of Germany. But the genocide of queer people did not stop there — rather, it continues all over the world today, in various forms. The AIDS pandemic during the 1980s in the imperialist States (and still in the Third World today!) meant the extermination of queer people on an even level larger than the Holocaust through the systematic denial of health services and prevention, and the condemnation of queer people themselves by the Yankee President Reagan, Pope John Paul the Second, and other imperialist leaders. In 2017, a genocide of queer people began in the Russian colony of Chechnya, including forced disappearances, torture, assassinations, and the establishment of concentration camps, all of this still being ongoing. In Switzerland, a gay man died from AIDS just a few years ago, because his treatment was deemed «non-essential» by the cantonal government and his insurance company. And, in every country, no matter how «progressive», queer people are systematically made homeless, disappeared, unemployed, beaten up, raped, and killed as a result of the queer-antagonistic ideology, which is part of the dual oppression of queer people, and which has intensified with imperialism. Thus, it is a complete lie that imperialism has given queer people «civil rights». Those rights were conquered by the partisans who fought Nazi-Fascism; they were conquered at Compton's Cafeteria and at Stonewall; they are being conquered in the People's Wars in Turkey and the Philippines, and in countless other, smaller struggles in every country on Earth. And let us not forget the example of Germany: A queer movement led by the bourgeoisie gained rights and demands, but, in the end, the Institute for Sexual Sciences was burned, Magnus Hirschfeld fled the country, and thousands died in the extermination camps. Under imperialism, every right will be twisted and turned, and, when it is possible to snatch it away, it will be taken away again. All of this is part of the generalized imperialist genocide of queer people in the entire world, which is part of the imperialist annihilation of the proletariat and oppressed peoples.
This genocide is only one expression of what Lenin wrote:
The imperialist war has immensely accelerated and intensified the process of transformation of monopoly capitalism into State-monopoly capitalism. The monstrous oppression of the working people by the State, which is merging more and more with the all-powerful capitalist associations, is becoming increasingly monstrous. The developed countries — we mean their hinterland — are becoming military convict prisons for the workers.18 [Our emphasis.]
#3.5. THE TRIPLE OPPRESSION OF QUEER PEOPLE IN THE THIRD WORLD
After the Second World War, imperialism redivided the world, and the Three Worlds were differentiation, as Chairman Mao Zedong taught us:
I hold that the United States and the Council Union belong to the First World. The middle elements, such as Japan, Europe, Australia, and Canada, belong to the Second World. We are the Third World.19 [Our emphasis.]
In the Third World exist those oppressed nations based on semi-feudalism or even earlier modes of production, dominated by imperialism through its colonial or semi-colonial modes of control, and, in these countries, a bureaucrat capitalism develops, which is parasitic, monopolistic, and dying, but not yet dead; a still-born child of two dying parents: imperialism and semi-feudalism. This is the case with the oppressed nations of Asia (except for Japan and China), Africa, Latin America, and Oceania (except for Australia and New Zealand), and, as Chairman Gonzalo has taught us, the Third World is expanding to Europe, encompassing such countries as Ireland and the former «Eastern Bloc» (except for Russia and the German Democratic Republic). Under the conditions of bureaucrat capitalism, patriarchal oppression is sharpened; it is characterized both by the brutality of the Middle Ages and the «scientific», industrialized categorization of imperialism. This can only have one consequence: A brutally sharpened triple oppression of women and queer people. It is triple, because it is at the same time class oppression, patriarchal oppression, and national oppression. This oppression replaces the old «third-gender» institutions, which have survived, in different forms, since primitive society.
Chairman Mao Zedong characterized the oppression of women in semi-feudal and semi-colonial China as follows:
As for women, in addition to being dominated by these three systems of authority, they are also dominated by the men (the authority of the husband). These four authorities — political, family, religious, and patriarchal — are the embodiment of the whole feudal-paternalist ideology and system, and are the four thick ropes binding the Chinese people, particularly the peasants.20 [Our emphasis.]
Is this any different for queer people in Somalia or Afghanistan, who face honour-killings at the hand of their own clan, gay men in Iran, who face the choice between execution or a forced sex change, trans women in Thailand, who face a life as slaves of the pornography or sex-tourism industries, lesbians in Mexico, who may be beaten to death by a man who cannot have them, or any queer youth in Hungary, Ireland, or Poland, kicked out on the frozen streets by a father who loves the Church more than his own child? It is not any different, it is an oppression of patriarchal character, specific to the conditions of the Third World, and to negate it is to support this ongoing genocide of queer people in the entire world.
In synthesis, imperialism develops a much more brutal, yet systematized, oppression of queer people in the Third World. This is spread as part of the expansion of bureaucrat capitalism. The imperialist, bureaucrat-capitalist patriarchy gradually replaces the semi-feudal remnants of «third-gender» institutions, but the proletarian conception of the queer question is also spread in this way.
#4. FOR A CLASS LINE IN THE QUEER MOVEMENT!
The queer movement has its origin in the large-scale incorporation of the masses into production under capitalism, which, on the one hand, forces queer people into the closet and prevents their movement from developing as part of the proletarian movement, and, on the other hand, forces queer people to develop underground and semi-underground social and political spaces, in sharp contradiction with the bourgeois State, which gives rise to a queer movement separated from the rest of the mass movement.
#4.1. THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE QUEER MOVEMENT
The essence of the bourgeois-patriarchal oppression of queer people is to punish deviation from the sexual norms and gender roles of society, in order to defend the bourgeois-patriarchal nuclear family unit. It takes many forms: queer workers being fired from their workplace, queer youth being made homeless by their families, queer couples being evicted from their homes, forced electro-shock therapy or Christian «conversion therapy», and queer people in general being at constant risk of police repression or, in countries where being queer is now formally legal, lumpen-pogromist violence, rape, and murder. The function of this repression is not to «convert» queers in general, but to suppress them to «stay in the closet» and participate in the bourgeois-patriarchal nuclear family.
All of these forms of oppression, in particular economic forms, have the effect of increased impoverishment of queers, who every day become homeless, unemployed, must turn to prostitution or small-scale crime to survive, fall into drug abuse, and so on. The tendency is the lumpenization of the queer masses, which serves as a further example to closeted queers, while, at the same time, being part of the general liquidation of the class and the people.
That queer people are forced to stay in the closet means that they necessarily cannot form a special part of the proletarian movement or organize outside of underground or semi-underground spaces. Even queer cultural spaces, such as bars, are usually underground or semi-underground. This is the general tendency and is the condition in most countries and time periods; the queer movement since 1969 has conquered economic and political demands, which push this tendency back and allow for aboveground and semi-aboveground spaces and organizations, but this is only tolerated temporarily by the reaction. In States where the queer movement has been historically weak, such as in Russia, we still find a situation similar to that of the United States or Western Europe in the early 1960s. And, as the experience of Germany 1918-33 shows, these conquered rights can be rolled back by fascism.
This isolation from the proletarian movement has meant that the queer movement has had a weak Communist presence and a strong bourgeois influence, which has led to identity politics. This, then, leads to queer-antagonistic sentiment in the revolutionary movement, which tends to view the queer movement as bourgeois or small-bourgeois, individualist, hedonist, and generally reactionary.
The constant confrontations with the bourgeois-patriarchal family and the bourgeois State, however, have the effect of super-politicizing queer masses; this means that they are, more than most other parts of the masses, tempered in sharp class instinct right from the moment they come out. This super-politicization explains the prevalence of queer people in the revolutionary movement, and necessitates proletarian leadership even more. Thus, it becomes more necessary to separate the wheat from the tares, as Lenin would say.
As a result of the generalized imperialist genocide of queers in the entire world, the impoverishment of the queer masses, and the super-politicization of queer people, the 20th and 21st centuries have created the queer emancipation movement; this movement has been the result of the struggle of the queer masses themselves and is a movement for daily demands in which the entire people acts. It is not a proletarian movement, because the Communist Parties refuse to lead it, but its perspective is proletarian leadership and the conquest of political power, and, therefore, we call it the queer emancipation movement. Fundamentally, no matter what bourgeois characters try to traffic with it, it is a movement of the deepest and broadest masses. It is the organizational expression of the super-politicization of queer people, which takes place because of the extremely sharp repression faced. And its tendency is more and more to integrate with the proletarian movement and serve the proletarian world revolution.
We highlight the struggles in the 1960s and '70s, particularly the Compton's Cafeteria Riots in San Francisco, the Stonewall Riots in New York City, and the widespread Gay Liberation Movement in the United States, in which some groups took up Mao Zedong's Thought (such as the Houston Gay Liberation Front), some attempted to grasp the queer question on the basis of Marxism (such as the Los Angeles Research Group), and others (such as STAR) called for revolutionary violence. However, among those groups which did not take up Marxism, the problem was that only economist consciousness was developed; STAR, for instance, called for revolution in words, but in practice focused only on the social, cultural, and economic support of the deepest and broadest queer masses, without organizing them for people's war. This is not a statement against the queer emancipation movement — it is simply the confirmation of Lenin's thesis:
We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from the outside. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness, that is, the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, and so on. The theory of Socialism, however, grew out of the philosophical, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status, the founders of modern scientific Socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves were bourgeois intellectuals. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary Socialist intellectuals. [...]
Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from the outside, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relations of all classes and strata to the State and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes. For that reason, the reply to the question as to what must be done to bring political knowledge to the workers cannot be merely the answer with which, in the majority of cases, the practical workers, especially those inclined toward Economism, mostly content themselves, namely: «To go among the workers.» To bring political knowledge to the workers, the Social-Democrats must go among all classes of the population; they must dispatch units of their army in all directions.21 [Our emphasis.]
We emphasize: The tendency is integration with the proletarian movement, not isolation from it. Those who claim that the queer emancipation movement is «small-bourgeois» should do more research. The Gay Liberation Front in Houston actively carried out mass work and integrated itself with the Black Panther Party for Self-Defence. The Los Angeles Research Group was part of the struggle to reconstitute the Communist Party of the United States, but its members were excluded from the process of forming the Revolutionary Communist Party because they were queer. The book Stone Butch Blues by the author Leslie Feinberg should be read by all Communists, because it accurately portrays the conditions of proletarian queer people during the 1950s to '70s, and pay special attention to the large amount of lesbians employed as dock and factory workers, who were excluded on principle from the trade unions. For those with a lack of understanding of the impoverishment of the queer masses and the resulting prevalence of prostitution and Economist consciousness among them, they should not turn their nose toward the sky, but study why this is so and how proletarian consciousness can be developed. The documentary film, Paris is Burning, shows clearly the state of queer life in New York City in the 1970s and '80s. And, as an example of the tendency to integrate with the proletarian movement, we highlight the circle «Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners», which, in 1984-85, carried out a solidarity campaign for the miners' strikes in Britain, which led to a greater understanding of both the queer and labour struggles as proletarian mass struggles. Today, proletarian revolutionaries in several countries are either incorporating queer people into their people's wars or the process of fighting for the constitution or reconstitution of the Communist Party, which serves as inspiration and a positive example for all Communists.
#4.2. REFORMISM, THE BOURGEOIS LINE IN THE QUEER MOVEMENT
The labour-aristocracy is the economic basis of revisionism. It is the social basis of the imperialist bourgeoisie, which smuggles bourgeois ideology into the proletarian movement. This revisionism is able to grow roots in the trade-union consciousness of the labour movement when the latter is not led by a Communist Party. As this is the case with the labour movement, it is also the case with other mass movements, such as the women's and queer movements. Reformism and revisionism are bourgeois ideologies inside the proletariat and masses. The queer bourgeoisie traffics with the queer movement and peddles reformism in order to achieve privileges for itself. Keeping in mind Lenin's theses about trade-union consciousness and the labour-aristocracy, and Chairman Mao's thesis about the friends and enemies of the revolution, we quote Chairman Gonzalo:
Rise above this marsh, this superficial revisionism, opportunism, and parliamentarism, which rides on the backs of the masses. The main thing is that, below this, the colossal and self-moving masses agitate, and we operate among them with the most powerful weapon of rebellion that exists on Earth: armed action. We are the cry that says: «It is right to rebel.»22
In the queer movement, the labour-aristocracy is mainly expressed in the upper stratum of bribed functionaries and secretaries, who run the so-called LGBT+ organizations. These are nothing but NGOs which serve the corporatization of the queer masses. While the owners of queer bars are small bourgeois, the bartenders are often labour-aristocrats. This entire rotten stratum has more time, money, and social connections, and, therefore, it can occupy all the leading posts in the queer movement. This is the economic basis of reformism in the queer movement, and, therefore, the present so-called LGBT+ movement is of a bourgeois character. In synthesis, this is the basis of identity politics, which some political parties and organizations incorrectly promote as «queer politics», without realizing its class content. The presence of the military officers and police offers at Pride marches is only one, but the most disgustingly insulting, material expression of this; other examples include the defence of debased elements, such as paedophiles, or the promotion of «queer-friendly» pornography and prostitution.
In synthesis, the presence of a labour-aristocracy within the queer section of the population, which is bribed and bases itself on the tendency to separate the queer masses from the labour movement because of the threat of unemployment, is the social basis for bourgeois reformism inside the queer movement itself. This must be combated, and the proletariat must lead the queer movement. If not combated, it will result in the queer masses being forced into class collaboration with the queer section of the monopoly bourgeoisie.
#4.3. SEPARATISM, THE SMALL-BOURGEOIS LINE IN THE QUEER MOVEMENT
The small bourgeoisie is a dying class, which is reactionary unless it grasps its own lack of future and joins with the revolutionary movement based on its future class interests as proletarians:
The lower-middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the handicraftsperson, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Moreover, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat, they thus defend, not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.14 [Our emphasis.]
Because the small bourgeoisie consists of students, academics, small businesspeople, State functionaries, and so on, it has a special position in the patriarchal oppression of queer people: queer elements within the small bourgeoisie are, on the one hand, oppressed by anti-sodomy laws, lumpen-pogromist violence, and so on, but, on the other hand, they are free of other forms of oppression, such as the threat of being fired for being queer, becoming homeless for being queer, and so on. This is a specific expression of the duality of the small bourgeoisie, which expresses itself politically.
Small-bourgeois queer people can typically be open about their gender identity and sexuality. This is precisely the reason why small-bourgeois queer people don't take up the ideology of the proletariat, but instead find ideological solutions which fit them as individuals. They typically play a key role in the establishment of queer cultural spaces and political circles and are the main driving force in queer organizations, because they have more time and money. This is even more the case in countries where the queer movement is weaker, since these spaces must be underground or semi-underground, leading to their further isolation from the masses. This is precisely the reason why small-bourgeois ideas about «queer liberation» on an individual basis are expressed in the queer movement.
No matter whether it takes the form of «queer feminism», «radical feminism», «Marxist feminism», openly declared post-modernism, or any other kind of academic «queer thought», the small-bourgeois line in the queer movement focuses on separatism. That means separating queer people from the proletarian and mass movement; separating male and female queer people from each other; separating men and women from each other in general; separating everybody along the lines of a thousand different sexual and gender identities; and so on, and so forth. Separatism is a small-bourgeois ideology which has no other effect than splitting the queer movement, mass movement, and proletarian movement, and it is therefore reactionary. In particular, the «intersectional» tendency within queer feminism has played a reactionary role by being responsible for splitting the women's movement in the recent years.
All of these small-bourgeois trends within the queer movement serve the interests of imperialism, because they do not threaten it, no matter how many radical phrases they use. They are only interested in their cultural-political spaces, where they can feel comfortable, free of men, free of police, free of non-queer people, or whatever they specifically want. Queer emancipation would take away their independent kingdoms, so they are afraid of it. They have their «revolutionism», but also their individualism. They fit the description Lenin gave of the liberal bourgeoisie in Tsarist Russia:
And so, the learned historian of the bourgeoisie does not fear an uprising of the people. They fear the victory of the people. They are not afraid of the people administering a slight lesson to the reactionaries and the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy which they hate so much. They are afraid of the people overthrowing the reactionary government. They hate the autocracy and desires its overthrow with all their heart; it is not from the preservation of the autocracy, not from the poisoning of the people's organism by the slow putrefaction of the still living parasite of monarchist rule that they expect the doom of Russia, but from the complete victory of the people.23
#4.5. THE PROLETARIAN LINE IN THE QUEER MOVEMENT
As an introduction, we should remember that, although Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Chairman Gonzalo have offered no answer to the queer question, there are other Communists and revolutionaries who have fought to solve this problem and establish proletarian leadership of the queer movement. We emphasize Comrade August Bebel, Chairperson of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, who, in 1898 became the first to oppose Prussia's anti-sodomy laws;24 Comrade Harry Whyte of the Communist Party of Britain, whose criticism of the gender metaphysics of Comrade Stalin was a perfect expression of «going against the current» and attempted to analyze the queer question on the basis of Marxism;25 the Los Angeles Research Group, a circle of lesbian Marxist-Leninists mentioned above, were excluded from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, for being queers, but then unfolded a criticism of Avakian's sexual metaphysics;26 and other contributions closer to the present day, including the Second National Congress of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which established that the Party «uphold the right of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people to express their gender identity and support their struggle against all forms of discrimination»;27 two important policy papers written by proletarian queer revolutionaries of the Stonewall Militant Front in the United States in January 2018;28 and one policy paper written by proletarian revolutionaries in Denmark in June 2019.29 Therefore, the Red Star group is not alone in demanding a Marxist standpoint on the queer question, nor are we the first. Our policy paper is the product of a long historic period of struggle, which has corresponded to the general development of Marxism.
This serves the process of struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Switzerland for the People's War, which is fundamentally a process of struggle to identify, reclaim, and further develop the Party's basis of unity, including its ideology, General Political Line, and Programme, and, as part of the General Political Line, its Mass Line, which must contain specific lines for the different mass fronts. The queer movement is such a mass front, and therefore a trench in the struggle, which the Party must lead on the basis of a specific line.
The fundamental contradiction of the queer question is the contradiction {queer people ↔ patriarchy}.
Under capitalism, this contradiction takes on specific form mainly as the contradiction {queer masses ↔ imperialism}, and, secondarily, as the contradiction {queer masses ↔ bourgeois-patriarchal nuclear family}.
The contradiction to imperialism is primary, because it is the imperialist superstructure that maintains the repression of queers, and the oppression by the boss, family, landlord, and so on, only exist because the State and ideology maintain it.
In the current period of the Swiss revolution, which is the period of the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Switzerland, the contradiction {queer masses ↔ Swiss imperialism} takes specific form as {queer masses ↔ Swiss reaction}. During the People's War, it will take specific form as {queer masses ↔ old State}, and, during the proletarian cultural revolution, it will be specified as {queer masses ↔ revisionism}.
The solution of the contradiction {queer people ↔ patriarchy} requires a long historical process of revolution, and it will not entirely disappear until communism. Its final solution requires the abolition of all old ideas of gender and sexuality, so that only biological problems, such as transition or child-rearing, will remain, which are solved through the development of productive forces and scientific experiment.
We raise the slogan of our class, «Fight and resist!», as the main slogan for the proletarian faction of the queer movement, which must be given specific form according to the specific situation.
The rebellion of the queer masses. They have always rebelled with revolutionary violence and thus conquered daily demands and rights. We emphasize the 28th of June as International Queer Day of Struggle, because it marks the Stonewall Riots.
Scientific organization of the poor. The impoverishment of the queer masses is an ongoing tendency, worsened by the imperialist economic crises, the militarization of the old States, and the corporatization of the masses. Queer people are being thrown into homelessness, unemployment, starvation, and prostitution at a much higher rate than any other section of the masses; those queer people who are impoverished must be mobilized, no matter whether they are proletarian, semi-proletarian, or have become lumpen, because the united front is broader in this case due to the character of patriarchy; those who are lumpen and semi-lumpen must be assisted, but not through Red social work, but rather by organizing them and proletarianizing them. Queer comrades who are impoverished must be treated in the same way.
Daily demands of the queer masses. We raise the slogan of the «Three Fors» and «Three Againsts». The «Three Fors» are:
- For Red queer self-defence!
- For Red queer socio-economic aid!
- For Red queer self-determination!
The «Three Againsts» are:
- Against State oppression of queer people!
- Against impoverishment of queer people!
- Against oppression of queer people in the family!
The only Gonzalo's Thought tactic:
- First, combat the labour-aristocracy in the queer movement, which pacifies the movement and spreads identity politics.
- Second, go to the deepest and broadest queer masses; not the NGO members or bartenders, but the closeted workers and youth and the impoverished ones.
- Third, educate the queer masses in proletarian military theory and violent actions against the enemy; in this way, prepare them for the People's War.
- Fourth, combat identity politics at every step of the way and impose the Gonzalo's Thought conception of the queer question.
Organizational forms. The ranks of the Communist Party, people's army and united front or New State in each country must be opened to queer people, who must be treated with equality and respect. We are in favour of queer membership in the Party, the army, and the united front or New State, in favour of the recognition of transgender comrades, and in favour of marriage of queer couples. The Communist political parties and organizations must create grassroots organizations in order to lead the queer emancipation movement; before the initiation of armed struggle, these must be Red queer committees in the imperialist countries and popular queer committees in the oppressed countries. After the initiation of armed struggle, they must transform into Red queer movements in each imperialist country and the popular queer movements in each oppressed country.
We must apply the three general criteria for mass organizations:
- First, to uphold, defend, and apply, mainly apply, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo's Thought, mainly Gonzalo's Thought.
- Second, to be led by the vanguard in a process of formation of the proletariat in this country.
- Third, to serve the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Switzerland for the People's War, as a part of and to serve the proletarian world revolution.
In synthesis, we have laid the basis for the specific line for the Party's mass work among queer people, as part of the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Switzerland.
#5. SYNTHESIS
Human history is one of continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. This process is never-ending. In any society in which classes exist, the class struggle will never end. In classless society, the struggle between the new and the old and between truth and falsehood will never end. In the fields of the struggle for production and scientific experiment, humanity makes constant progress and nature undergoes constant change; they never remain at the same level. Therefore, people have constantly to sum up experience and go on discovering, inventing, creating, and advancing. Ideas of stagnation, pessimism, inertia, and complacency are all wrong. They are wrong, because they agree neither with the historical facts of social development over the past 1'000'000 years, nor with the historical facts of nature so far known to us (that is, nature as revealed in the history of celestial bodies, the Earth, life, and other natural phenomena).29 [Our emphasis.]
The patriarchal oppression of queer people originated and developed alongside private property and the State, on the basis of the patriarchal exploitation and oppression of women. In the lower stage of primitive-communal society, there was no contradiction between queer people and non-queer people; in the higher stage of primitive-communal society, the contradiction was not yet antagonistic; it is only with civilized society that the contradiction becomes antagonistic.
Queer people are oppressed twice in capitalist society: as proletarians and as queer people. The economic basis of their oppression as queer people lies in the bourgeois-patriarchal nuclear family and the patriarchal dual exploitation of women; the queer question is thus secondary to and derived from the women's question.
The patriarchal oppression of queer people is qualitatively different from the patriarchal exploitation and oppression of women and from the aspect of patriarchal oppression faced by men who quantitatively diverge from patriarchal norms. It is something entirely different, which serves a specific function in patriarchy: to protect and nourish the patriarchal family.
Imperialism has sharpened the patriarchal dual oppression of queer people and led to a generalized, worldwide, imperialist genocide of queer people, which is part of the general annihilation of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples. In the Third World, it takes a bureaucrat-capitalist form and is fused with the brutality of feudalism and slavery, and, therefore, the genocide is the worst in the oppressed nations.
Queer-antagonistic ideology takes the forms of religion, mainly Christianity and gender metaphysics disguised as science. The oppression of queer people is carried out both by the State and, when rights have been conquered, by lumpen-pogromist gangs. Queer people are impoverished and in sharp confrontation with the old States, which leads to their super-politicization, but also isolation from the proletarian movement.
It is necessary for the Communist political parties and organizations to take up the proletarian line in the queer movement and struggle to lead the deepest and broadest queer masses in their struggle for daily demands, and, mainly, the conquest of political power, through their mobilization, education, organization, and armament in people's war. Not having proletarian leadership of the queer movement leads these masses, some of which are part of the proletariat, into the arms of reactionary bourgeois and small-bourgeois elements, who, in the end, do nothing except contribute to the genocide of queer people and strengthen the counter-revolution.
The final solution to the queer question will only be achieved through the abolition of patriarchy, private property, and the State through the new-democratic revolutions, socialist revolutions, and proletarian cultural revolutions. The solution of the queer question in communism is the solution of the contradiction between men and women, and, as a result, between queer people and non-queer people.
#UPHOLD, DEFEND, AND APPLY, MAINLY APPLY, MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM-GONZALO'S THOUGHT, MAINLY GONZALO'S THOUGHT!
#IDENTIFY, RECLAIM, AND FURTHER DEVELOP THE MASS LINE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SWITZERLAND!
#FOR A CLASS LINE IN THE QUEER MOVEMENT!
#LONG LIVE THE INTERNATIONAL QUEER DAY OF STRUGGLE! LONG LIVE THE 28th OF JUNE!
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Mao Zedong: Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society (Before the 1st of December, 1925) ↩
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Karl Marx: Postface to the 1873 German Edition of Capital, Vol. 1 (24th of January, 1873) ↩
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Friedrich Engels: The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (April-May 1884) ↩ ↩ ↩
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Nikolaj Lenin: The State and Revolution (August-September 1917) ↩
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I.B. Stalin: The Fight Against Right-Wing and «Far-Left» Deviations (22nd of January, 1926) ↩
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Mao Zedong: On Propaganda Work (12th of March, 1957) ↩
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Gonzalo: Fundamental Documents of the Communist Party of Peru (Before January 1988) ↩
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Los Angeles Research Group: Toward a Scientific Analysis of the Gay Question (1974) ↩
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Aristotle: On the Lacedaemonian Constitution (Around 340 BCE) ↩
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Don Pedro Fages (1775) ↩
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Gonzalo: Marxism, Mariategui, and the Women's Movement (Before January 1974) ↩
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Ovid: Metamorphoses (8 CE) ↩
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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party (December 1847-January 1848) ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
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The examples given of gender metaphysics are generally taken from the writings of the revisionist Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, when both he and his Party were genuine Marxist-Leninists in the 1970s and '80s. Avakian's gender metaphysics were thoroughly criticized by a circle of lesbian Marxist-Leninists in Los Angeles in the document Toward a Scientific Analysis of the Gay Question, 1974. This document is good and should be studied. Many Communist political parties and organizations today share the views of Avakian on queer people, which is why we bring up this example. However, as we also make clear, gender metaphysics is a dogmato-revisionist criterion, foreign to the Marxist method. ↩
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Nikolaj Lenin: Preface to the 1920 French and German Editions of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (6th of July, 1920) ↩
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Nikolaj Lenin: Imperialism and the Split in Socialism (October 1916) ↩
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Nikolaj Lenin: Preface to the 1917 Russian Edition of The State and Revolution (August 1917) ↩
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Mao Zedong: On the Differentiation of the Three Worlds (22nd of February, 1974) ↩
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Mao Zedong: Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan (16th to 18th of February, 1927) ↩
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Nikolaj Lenin: What Is to Be Done? (Autumn 1901-February 1902) ↩
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Quoted in Gonzalo, Norah, and Miriam: Basis for Discussion of the General Political Line of the Communist Party of Peru (September 1987) ↩
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Nikolaj Lenin: What Our Liberal Bourgeois Want, and What They Fear (Before the 14th of September, 1905) ↩
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See August Bebel: On Homosexuality and the Penal Code (13th of January, 1898) ↩
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See Harry Whyte: Letter to I.B. Stalin (May 1934) ↩
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See Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines: Programme for a People's Democratic Revolution (June 2018) ↩
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See Stonewall Militant Front: 2018: A New Year, a New Us (1st of January, 2018), and Omissions and Corrections to the Stonewall Militant Front Announcements (13th of January, 2018) ↩
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See Red Wave: For a Class Line in the Queer Movement! (28th of June, 2019), a document which was deleted from the blog socialistiskrevolution.wordpress.com after the dogmato-revisionist usurpation of the Danish organization. ↩
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Mao Zedong: China Will Take a Great Leap Forward (Before the 21st of December, 1964) ↩ ↩