Old Left

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."[9] Arthur Calwell, another Old Leftist who led the Australian Labor Party in the 1960s, strongly defended the 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 ... I reject, in conscience, the idea that Australia should or ever can become a multi-racial society and survive."[10] 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.[11]

Communist leaders and intellectuals took many different positions on LGBT rights issues. Marx and Engels wrote little on the subject; Marx in particular commented rarely on 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".[12] This is because in private Engels criticized male homosexuality and related it to ancient Greek pederasty,[13] saying that "[the ancient Greeks] fell into the abominable practice of sodomy [Knabenliebe, meaning 'boy love" or pederasty] and degraded alike their gods and themselves with the myth of Ganymede".[14] Engels also said that the pro-pederast movement "cannot fail to triumph. Guerre aux cons, paix aus trous-de-cul [war on the cunts, peace to the arse-holes] will now be the slogan".[15] Engels also referred to Dr. Karl Boruttau as a Schwanzschwule ("gay prick") in private.[16]

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 homo-phobic, as shown by an acerbic 1869 exchange of letter on 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".[17]

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 fascists or the aristocracy. The law remained intact until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and was repealed in 1993.[18][19] Gay men were sometimes denied membership or expelled from Communist parties across the globe during the 20th century as most Communist parties followed the social precedents set by the Soviet Union.[20]

The West was less beholden to Soviet ideas. Notable Western gay members of Communist parties included Mark Ashton, founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners[21] and LGBT rights advocate, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain;[22] and Harry Hay, a gay rights activist, labor advocate,[23] Native American civil rights campaigner,[24] Mattachine Society founder,[25] co-founder of Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front,[26] and a member of the Communist Party USA.[27]

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.[28][29] The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) supported an anti-gay law in 2013.[30] The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) voted against the introduction of same-sex civil unions in 2015, but has also criticized homophobia and discrimination in general.[31][32]