Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
A communist pioneer of gay rights
ANGUS REID and TOMASZ KITLINSKI tell the story of Harry Whyte, a working-class voice who defended homosexuality in Soviet Russia from a Marxist perspective – and whose arguments resonate today

THE masses are not intolerant of gay people. This assertion is the crux of the socialist case against homophobia. 

When you can grasp that intolerance doesn’t come from the masses, you can recognise that it is a choice and a form of ideological oppression. 

This how the argument was made to recognise and defend gay people in revolutionary Russia. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
(L to R) Clem Beckett; remnants of the Republican trenches Jarama, the hill in front was in Nationalist hands the Madrid-Valencia is to the left of the picture / Pics (L to R): Unknown; 19Tarrestnom65
Spanish Civil War / 24 July 2026
24 July 2026

A champion motorcyclist, trade union organiser and communist, Clem Beckett went from Britain’s speedway tracks to the battlefields of Spain, where he gave his life resisting Franco’s forces at Jarama. GEOFF BOTTOMS pays tribute to this remarkable anti-fascist

Tom Mooney Company from the Lincoln Battalion, during the Spanish Civil War, Jarama, Spain, 1937
History / 24 February 2026
24 February 2026

CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history

Victor Grossman with some of the works he published in the G
Features / 5 February 2026
5 February 2026

Hundreds in Berlin gathered on January 15 to honour the US-born socialist who made East Germany his home. Florentine Morales Sandoval reports

Morning Star and Xinhua Daily meeting
History / 27 September 2025
27 September 2025

A chance find when clearing out our old office led us to renew a friendship across 5,000 miles and almost nine decades of history, explains ROGER McKENZIE