Ursula K. Le Guin has always been the GOAT of speculative fiction, the kind of writer who rewired how we think about society. But as of late 2025, she’s achieved a new level of clout: getting personally targeted by the FSB.
Vladimir Putin just did the one thing guaranteed to make a 1969 sci-fi cult scifi novel cool again—he made it forbidden fruit. Le Guin is no longer just a literary icon; she’s officially a threat to the Russian state.
Why Russia is Raiding Bookstores
According to online reports from EADaily and the “Caution, News” (Ostorozhno Novosti) Telegram channel:, the Kremlin has lost the plot. In December 2025, the FSB moved from crushing political dissidents to policing the imagination.
The “Crime”: The novel The Left Hand of Darkness depicts a planet where gender is fluid and ambisexual. Russian experts decided this wasn’t a metaphor, but a literal attack on the “constitutional definition of marriage.”
The Tactic: They used a mix of “LGBT propaganda” laws and a new panic over “drug propaganda” to force retailers like Litres to purge 4,500 titles.
The Action: This wasn’t just paperwork. The FSB staged raids in peripheral cities to spook the big federal chains into “preventive compliance.” Basically, they scared the market into censoring itself.
The Western Connection: A Blueprint for the Culture War?
Here is the uncomfortable truth: a disturbing number of Western “trad” conservatives have been low-key fanboying over Putin’s “anti-woke” crusade for years. They view his enforcement of rigid traditionalism not as tyranny, but as a defense of civilization.
It forces us to ask: How long before this specific playbook crosses the Atlantic? We are already seeing book bans in the US based on “inappropriate content.” If the Kremlin can frame a sci-fi classic as an existential threat to the family unit, it’s not a stretch to imagine The Left Hand of Darkness vanishing from shelves in Florida or Texas under similar “protectionist” guises. The gap between Moscow’s censorship and American school board politics is shrinking.
You can’t stop the signal
Authoritarians always forget the golden rule of censorship: You cannot kill an idea by deleting a file. By trying to erase Le Guin’s vision of a gender-fluid society, the Kremlin has admitted that this vision is powerful enough to topple their worldview.
They have turned a paperback into a weapon. Censorship doesn’t weaken liberal values; it pressure-cooks them, turning abstract concepts into acts of rebellion.
The tighter they squeeze, the more essential these stories become. Read the book.
Ursula K Le Guin already crushes capitalism daily in her legendary speech, she’ll be happy to crush your authoritatian state next, Mr Putin.
Sources
Vedomosti: In bookstores, a check of “The Left Hand of Darkness” took place
https://www.vedomosti.ru/media/news/2025/12/18/1164558-azbuka-i-chitai-gorod-podtverdili
EADaily: In Russia, a science fiction novel first published back in the 90s is being withdrawn from sale
https://eadaily.com/en/news/2025/12/18/in-russia-a-science-fiction-novel-first-published-back-in-the-90s-is-being-withdrawn-from-sale
Meduza: Russia’s Sber confirms list of over 250 books removed from online marketplace due to ‘LGBT propaganda’ law
https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/02/21/russia-s-sber-confirms-list-of-over-250-books-removed-from-online-marketplace-due-to-lgbt-propaganda-law-including-works-by-dostoevsky-and-stephen-king
Kommersant: Megamarket removed books from sale due to LGBT propaganda
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6523824
Damien Walter 