GIDE IN THE USSR - SOME OBSERVATIONS ON COMRADESHIP

After 1914-18, Gide emphasized the value of the Comradeship of Mankind rather than the essentially individualistic ethos to which he had bee n previously committed. However, while believing in the social benefit s of tolerating pederasty, he still saw a person's difference from the norm as the guarantee of authenticity. Political idealism and curiosi ty took him to the U.S.S.R. in 1936, and on his return he criticized t he inertia, ignorance, and conformism which he considered were encoura ged by the Soviet state's promotion of the family unit. This essay exa mines how his attitude towards sexuality led him to question alleged p olitical freedoms and to see in the Soviet oppression of minorities, i ncluding homosexuals, the denial of the revolutionary spirit.