“I also may be accused of some dreamt-up crime, and so I may be fleeing the country like you.” (Describe the Night, pg. 87)
For a short period of time, same-sex relationships were not considered criminal in Russia. After the October revolution in 1917, the Bolshevik party repealed a law prohibiting sodomy. Surprisingly, when they created the first Soviet criminal codex, a similar type of law was not included. 1920’s Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) became “the capital of queer culture.” But this moment of tolerance was short-lived. After the “Case of the Leningrad Homosexuals,” an article outlawing homosexuality was added to the Criminal Code of 1934. Around this time, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD/Soviet secret police) gathered evidence that made Stalin believe that gay men were gathering in secret, “recruiting soldiers into their salons,” which “could lead to spying for Nazi Germany or for Western Powers.” Ironically, the direct successor of Stalin, who instated this law, would eventually be convicted of it himself: Nikolai Yezhov.
There is much uncertainty surrounding Nikolai Yezhov's sexuality. Some reports claim he regularly participated in orgies with female prostitutes as well as his male comrades, making him bisexual. The question of his sexuality was not really broached until he was arrested and fired from his position in the NKVD in 1939. Yezhov was accused of many crimes, including “planning a coup against the Soviet power” and engaging in homosexual relationships. Unlike his adamant advice to Babel in Describe the Night to “never confess,” in history, Yezhov confessed to all of the claims against him after being brutally tortured. In his confession, he named his previous partners (who were also swiftly arrested and executed).
“Filipp Goloshchekin arrived there to take the position of the Secretary of the Kazakh Regional Committee of the Communist Party...I practically moved in with him and often spent nights at his apartment. I had a pederastic relationship with him as well, which lasted periodically until my departure. This relationship was mutually active, as were the others.”
It’s impossible to tell if these confessions are truthful due to the farcical nature of similar arrests and trials during this time, not to mention the obvious skepticism of confessions made after torture. During this time, many were accused of crimes solely to tarnish their names and justify their murders. Nikita Khrushchev said in a speech to the Twentieth Congress of the Russian Communist Party:
Pictured: A gay wedding orchestrated by a member of the secret police, Afanasy Shaur, who plotted the event to ensure the group’s arrest.
Pictured: Deliberate erasure of Nikolai Yezhov, Stalin’s right-hand man, after Yezhov’s fall from grace with the regime.
“The commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archives and with other documents and has established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists…They were only so stigmatized and often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves (at the order of the investigative judges – falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes.”
Without more concrete evidence, we won’t ever know the full truth about Yezhov’s sexuality, but it is very possible he was attracted to other men.
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-69t58-d6cc36
Not much is known about Babel’s sexuality other than references to having multiple children with different mothers. However, the most notable connection between him and Yezhov is related to his sexual exploits: his affair with Yezhov’s wife. Which is also potentially what got him arrested. While the direct reason for Babel’s 1939 arrest is unknown, it is speculated to have been because of his proximity to Yezhov due to his relationship with Yevgenia. Seeing as Yezhov’s fall from grace with Stalin and execution happened only one year prior (1938), this theory might have something to it. Now, “in a piece of tragic irony,” their bodies are forever joined because their ashes were buried in the same mass grave in Moscow.
<aside> ℹ️ Dramaturgical research prepared by Emma Sipora Tyler (for educational purposes)
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