AIDS in Soviet Russia

The first book to tell the shocking story of the AIDS crisis in Soviet Russia.

Throughout the 1980s, as the world was grappling with the escalating crisis of AIDS, Soviet Russia continued to deny there was a problem. Arguing that the disease was limited to foreigners and ‘immoral’ groups, the government failed to take meaningful action, long past the point other countries had begun to recognise the full scale of the threat.

In this ground-breaking book, Rustam Alexander tells the story of AIDS in Soviet Russia. Fixated on disinformation, censorship and the persecution of marginalised communities, the Soviet authorities wasted precious time, allowing the epidemic to strike at the very heart of the nation: its children. Yet, despite the government’s failure, a number of brave journalists, doctors and nascent gay groups decided to take matters into their own hands and engage in full-fledged AIDS activism.

Tracing the political and social response to AIDS in the final years of the Soviet era, Alexander sheds light on the devastating consequences of government inaction. He draws on personal stories, media reports and archival materials to provide a riveting account of the Russian people’s fight against AIDS amid the tumultuous transformations of Gorbachev’s perestroika.

Author Biography

Rustam Alexander is a researcher who specialises in Russian and Soviet history. He is the author of Red Closet: The Hidden History of Gay Oppression in the USSR (2023), Gay Lives and ‘Aversion Therapy’ in Brezhnev’s Russia (2023) and Regulating Homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 195691: A Different History (2021). His work has appeared in Slavic Review, Russian History, Europa-Asia Studies and Kritika. He is a columnist for Novaya Gazeta Evropa, an independent Russian newspaper.