In this article, I use the analysis of citizenship regimes and their revolutionary changes as a point of departure to offer an improvement of the notion of grassroots politics. The focus of the article is on queer citizenship as it evolved in alternative modernity that the USSR conditioned. Immediately after the October Revolution, the new government deliberately proclaimed a new sexual freedom and rearranged the material conditions of living in urban areas of the country. This resulted in unexpected changes of practice, one of which is the multiplication of public space. Contrary to conventional forms of politics, Soviet queer politics was reallocated to parallel urban spaces. This analysis allows one to address the particular relations between one’s sexuality and political participation, citizenship and materiality, market economy and revolutions.
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