homosexuality became a topic unfit for public depiction, defense or discussion. Homosexual or bisexual Soviet citizens who wanted a position within the Communist Party were expected to marry a person of the opposite sex, regardless of their actual sexual orientation. A notable example was the Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein, who despite his homosexuality managed to survive by leading a double life, having affairs with men while married to a woman, producing films that were politically pleasing to Stalin. After Stalin died in 1953, he was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev, who proceeded to liberalize the Stalin era laws regarding marriage, divorce and abortion, but the anti-gay criminal law remained. The Khrushchev government believed that absent of a criminal law against homosexuality, the sex between men that occurred in the prison environment would spread into the general population as they released many Stalin-era prisoners. Whereas the Stalin government conflated homosexuality with pedophilia, the Khrushchev government conflated homosexuality with the situational, sometimes forced, sex acts between male prisoners. Although the topic of homosexuality was practically unmentionable, some references to homosexuality could be found in Soviet sex education manuals for young people and their parents. These manuals were published from the early 1950s to the early 1960s in the hope of restricting the sexual activity of Soviet people and to raise their awareness of venereal diseases. These manuals mentioned homosexuality to prevent Soviet children and youth from engaging in it. The first Khrushchev-era sex education manual to mention homosexuality was The Youth Becomes a Man (1960) and described homosexuals as child molesters: "...homosexuals are aroused by and satisfy themselves with adolescents and youngsters, even though the latter have a normal interest towards girls. Homosexuals go all out to gain the affection of the youngsters' society; they buy sweets and cigarettes for youngsters, tickets to the cinema, give them money, help to do home assignments and generally pretend that they unselfishly love youngsters. However, after such preparation, they sooner or later proceed to act. Do not let them touch you! Do not be shy about reporting them to your parents or educators, do not hesitate to report such attempts aimed at you or other young men! Both parents and educators will willingly help: homosexuality is a punishable crime, homosexuals are perfectly aware of that: that is why it is not difficult to get rid of them..". LGBT history under Brezhnev In 1958, the Interior