Red Closet: The Hidden History of Gay Oppression in the USSR

A poignant and deeply researched history of gay oppression in the USSR.

In 1934, Joseph Stalin enacted sodomy laws, unleashing a wave of brutal detentions of homosexual men in large Soviet cities.

Red closet recounts the compelling stories of people whose lives were affected by those laws, including a naïve Scottish journalist who dared to write to Stalin in an attempt to save his lover from prosecution and a homosexual theatre student who came to Moscow in pursuit of a career amid Stalin’s harsh repressions and mass arrests. We also meet a fearless doctor in Siberia who provided medical treatment for gay men at his own peril and a much-loved Soviet singer who hid his homosexuality from the secret police.

Each story helps paint the hitherto unknown picture of how Soviet oppression of gay people originated and was perpetuated from Stalin’s rule until the demise of the USSR. This book comes at a time when homophobia is again rearing its ugly head under Putin’s rule.

Rustam Alexander is a historian and independent scholar who obtained his PhD from the University of Melbourne. He is the author of Regulating homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 1956-91.