Editing Old Left (section)

== Social policy ==
{{Cleanup|date=May 2025|reason=The section keeps veering off of the central thesis of the article as defined in the summary into descriptions of modern non-liberal leftist parties and tendencies.}}

Since the mid-1970s with the advent of [[Revisionism (Marxism)|revisionist]] movements such as [[Eurocommunism]] (and earlier in the Anglosphere, the New Left), some parties on the [[Far-left politics|far left]] in the West have begun to adopt homosexual rights from the New Left as part of their platform while parties in the East such as the [[Communist Party of Greece]] (KKE) and the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]] have rejected this move and continue to focus exclusively on [[working class]] as the Old Left.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/23/greece-passes-bill-allowing-same-sex-civil-partnerships|title=Greece passes bill allowing civil partnerships for same-sex couples|agency=Reuters|date=22 December 2015|work=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://mao.gr/koutsoumpgay/|title=Κουτσούμπας: Όχι στο σύμφωνο συμβίωσης και στο δικαίωμα υιοθεσίας για ομοφυλόφιλους |website=mao.gr|date=28 August 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://gbtimes.com/opinion/after-all-homophobia-greek-word|title=After all, homophobia is a Greek word}}</ref> In 2015, KKE voted against the Civil Partnerships Bill proposed by [[Syriza]], responding: "With the formation of a socialist-communist society, a new type of partnership will undoubtedly be formed—a relatively stable heterosexual relationship and reproduction".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1089/kke.html|title=Greek Communist Party Pushes Anti-Gay Bigotry|website=www.icl-fi.org}}</ref>

[[Militant (Trotskyist group)|Militant]] was a [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] [[Entryism|entryist]] group in the British [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], based around the ''Militant'' newspaper launched in 1964. According to [[Michael Crick]], its politics were influenced by [[Karl Marx]], [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Vladimir Lenin]] and [[Leon Trotsky]] and "virtually nobody else".{{sfn|Crick|1986|p=3}} Militant has been cited as an example of left-wing opposition to feminism and gay rights initiatives within the [[labour movement]] in the early 1980s, specifically within the context of reaction to the financial support given to gay rights groups by the [[Greater London Council]] under the leadership of [[Ken Livingstone]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Stephen Brooke|title=Sexual Politics: Sexuality, Family Planning, and the British Left from the 1880s to the Present Day|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ozVM8IkcPWkC&pg=PA237|date=24 November 2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-956254-1|pages=236–237}}</ref> While Militant was present in Labour Party women's sections, claiming forty delegates attended the Labour Party women's conference in 1981, it opposed feminism which declared that men were the enemy, or the cause of women's oppression.<ref>{{cite book|author=Peter Taaffe|title=The Rise of Militant|url=http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/militant|date=November 1995|publisher=Militant Publications|isbn=978-0-906-582473|page=179}}</ref>

===Immigration===
The Old Left sometimes took a stance hostile to immigration, promoting policies that would preserve the ethnic homogeneity of the country. Australian Prime Minister [[John Curtin]], who was part of the [[Australian Labor Party]], reinforced the White Australia Policy and said the following in his defense: "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race."<ref>"Fact sheet – Abolition of the 'White Australia' Policy". Australian Government Department of Home Affairs. Archived from the original on 12 January 2018. Retrieved 11 January 2018.</ref> [[Arthur Calwell]], another Old Leftist who led the Australian Labor Party in the 1960s, strongly defended the [[White Australia policy|White Australia Policy]] and said the following: "I am proud of my white skin, just as a Chinese is proud of his yellow skin, a Japanese of his brown skin, and the Indians of their various hues from black to coffee-coloured. Anybody who is not proud of his race is not a man at all. And any man who tries to stigmatize the Australian community as racist because they want to preserve this country for the white race is doing our nation great harm&nbsp;... I reject, in conscience, the idea that Australia should or ever can become a multi-racial society and survive."<ref>Calwell, ''Be Just and Fear Not'', 117</ref> Left-wing Labor members perceived unrestricted immigration as a ploy by owners to drive down wages, resulting in the leadership of labor unions often being skeptical of expanded immigration.

As late as 2015, [[Bernie Sanders]] criticized open borders a "[[Koch brothers]] proposal", although he later switched to the more New Left position welcoming to immigration.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9048401/bernie-sanders-open-borders 
|title=Bernie Sanders's fear of immigrant labor is ugly – and wrongheaded |first=Dylan |last=Matthews |work=Vox |date=July 29, 2015 |access-date=2 January 2023}}</ref>

===Homosexuality===
{{Main|Socialism and LGBTQ rights}}
Communist leaders and intellectuals took many different positions on LGBT rights issues. Marx and Engels wrote little on the subject; Marx in particular rarely commented on [[Human sexuality|sexuality]] in general. Writing for Political Affairs, Norman Markowitz writes: "Here, to be frank, one finds from Marx a refusal to entertain the subject, and from Engels open hostility to the individuals involved".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Markowitz |first1=Norman |title=The Communist movement and gay rights: The hidden history |url=http://www.politicalaffairs.net/the-communist-movement-and-gay-rights-the-hidden-history/|website=politicalaffairs.net |access-date=22 March 2015 |date=6 August 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130816143523/http://politicalaffairs.net/the-communist-movement-and-gay-rights-the-hidden-history |archive-date=16 August 2013 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> This is because in private Engels criticized male homosexuality and related it to [[pederasty in ancient Greece|ancient Greek pederasty]],<ref>{{cite book |title=The Sexual Revolution in Russia: From the Age of the Czars to Today |pages=52–53 |first=Igor |last=Kon |author-link=Igor Kon |publisher=Simon & Schuster|date=1995}}</ref> saying that "[the ancient Greeks] fell into the abominable practice of sodomy [{{lang|de|Knabenliebe}}, meaning 'boy love" or [[pederasty]]] and degraded alike their gods and themselves with the myth of [[Ganymede (mythology)|Ganymede]]".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Angus |first1=Ian |last2=Riddell |first2=John |title=Engels and homosexuality |url=http://isreview.org/issue/70/engels-and-homosexuality|access-date=4 April 2016 |work=International Socialist Review |issue=70 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190701121801/https://isreview.org/issue/70/engels-and-homosexuality |archive-date=1 July 2019 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Engels also said that the pro-pederast movement "cannot fail to triumph. {{lang|fr|Guerre aux cons, paix aus trous-de-cul}} [war on the cunts, peace to the arse-holes] will now be the slogan".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1869/letters/69_06_22.htm |title=Letters: Marx–Engels Correspondence 1869 |author=Engels |publisher=Australian National University |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305025853/https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1869/letters/69_06_22.htm |archive-date=5 March 2016 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> Engels also referred to Dr. Karl Boruttau as a {{lang|de|Schwanzschwule}} ("gay<!--'schwul' is the ordinary colloquial German word for 'gay' bearing no (further) pejorative connotation--> prick") in private.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ireland |first1=Doug |title=Socialism and Gay Liberation: Back to the Future |url=http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue46/Ireland46.htm |work=New Politics |volume=XII |issue=2 |access-date=19 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170121075912/http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue46/Ireland46.htm |archive-date=21 January 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In fact, in the [[Soviet Union]], male homosexuality was considered a crime after its re-criminalization during the Stalinist era (it had previously been decriminalised by the early soviet government), a law which would not be revoked until 1993 after the [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|dissolution of the USSR]].

The ''[[Encyclopedia of Homosexuality]]'' is unequivocal on Marx and Engels view of homosexuality, stating in volume 2: "There can be little doubt that, as far as they thought of the matter at all, Marx and Engels were personally [[homophobia|homo-phobic]], as shown by an acerbic 1869 exchange of letter on [[Jean Baptista von Schweitzer|Jean-Baptiste von Schweitzer]], a German socialist rival. Schweitzer had been arrested in a park on a morals charge and not only did Marx and Engels refuse to join a committee defending him, they resorted to the cheapest form of bathroom humor in their private comments about the affair".<ref>"Marxism" in ''Encyclopedia of Homosexuality'', Volume 2</ref>

In 1933, [[Joseph Stalin]] added Article 121 to the entire Soviet Union criminal code, which made male homosexuality a crime punishable by up to five years in prison with hard labor. The precise reason for Article 121 is in some dispute among historians. The few official government statements made about the law tended to confuse homosexuality with [[pedophilia]] and was tied up with a belief that homosexuality was only practiced among [[Fascism|fascists]] or the [[aristocracy]]. The law remained intact until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and was repealed in 1993.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6ad788c.html |title=Russia: Update to RUS13194 of 16 February 1993 on the treatment of homosexuals |author=United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees |work=Refworld |access-date=12 September 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.savanne.ch/tusovka/en/pilot/homosexuality-russia.html |first=Anne |last=Buetikofer |title=Homosexuality in the Soviet Union and in today's Russia |work=Savanne |date=11 April 1999 |access-date=12 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924094522/http://www.savanne.ch/tusovka/en/pilot/homosexuality-russia.html |archive-date=24 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Gay men were sometimes denied membership or expelled from [[Communist party|Communist parties]] across the globe during the 20th century as most Communist parties followed the social precedents set by the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/54160.html |first=Doug |last=Ireland |title=Turns out Norman Thomas's Socialist Party Came Close to Breaking the Gay Taboo in 1952 |access-date=29 April 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090701195402/http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/54160.html |archive-date=1 July 2009 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

The [[Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova]] (PSRM) is a party which strongly opposes [[LGBT rights in Moldova]] and works with nationalist, right-wing and religious movements to counter the "promotion of vice spread with the help of the US in Moldova"; the [[Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova]] (PCRM) holds similar positions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.moldova.org/en/lgbt-solidarity-march-held/ |title=LGBT solidarity march in Moldova stopped due to fear of clashes with orthodox counter protesters |date=22 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612140610/http://www.moldova.org/en/lgbt-solidarity-march-held/ |archive-date=12 June 2018 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Voronin vrea referendum "anti-homosexuali" |url=https://point.md/ru/novosti/politika/voronin-vrea-referendum-antihomosexuali |access-date=2023-10-19 |website=point.md |language=ru}}</ref> The [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]] (KPRF) supported an [[Russian gay propaganda law|anti-gay law]] in 2013.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.euronews.com/2013/06/11/russian-mps-vote-overwhelmingly-to-outlaw-gay-propaganda/ |title=Russian MPs vote overwhelmingly to outlaw gay 'propaganda' |work=Euronews |date=11 June 2013}}</ref> The [[Communist Party of Greece]] (KKE) voted against the introduction of [[Recognition of same-sex unions in Greece|same-sex civil unions]] in 2015, but has also criticized homophobia and discrimination in general.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Epochi |first=rizospastis gr {{!}} Synchroni |date=2015-12-20 |title=rizospastis.gr - Η θέση του ΚΚΕ για το Σύμφωνο Συμβίωσης |url=https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=8714869 |access-date=2023-10-19 |website=ΡΙΖΟΣΠΑΣΤΗΣ |language=el}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Δήλωση του Δημήτρη Κουτσούμπα για τη Διεθνή Ημέρα κατά της Ομοφοβίας |url=https://www.kke.gr/article/Dilosi-toy-Dimitri-Koytsoympa-gia-ti-Diethni-Imera-kata-tis-Omofobias/ |access-date=2023-10-19 |website=www.kke.gr |language=el}}</ref>