The USSR and Homosexuality Part III (RSFSR Article 154a)

This legislation appears to have been interpreted as a protection against male on male rape, and not an attack upon homosexuality in general.  This stance appears to be vindicated by the fact that the Soviet Government (in 1926), invited the German Magnus Hirschfeld – the famous gay emancipator and founder of the World League of Sexual Reform – to witness first-hand the tolerance toward homosexuality in Revolutionary Russia. As a result, during the 1928 Copenhagen Congress of the Institute for the Science of Sexuality, the League stated that the Soviet Union was a model of tolerance for sexual diversity.  When Hitler came to power, however, these progressive institutes were attacked and destroyed.