Talk:Sixth Column

message: The Robert A. Heinlein article claims the publication date of this novel is 1949, however this article says 1948. Obviously these two references need to be consistified by someone who knows. -- Ellmist
:My paperback copy says: "Copyright © 1949 by Robert A. Heinlein. Reprinted from Astounding Science Fiction, © 1941 by Street and Smith Publications Inc." --Brion 06:06 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)
::I think it was originally published as a serial and then later collected into a novel and have added this info to the page. —Lowellian (talk) 11:40, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
:::There is no way this could have been written in 1941 if it began serialization in January 1941. I have changed "written" to "serialized" in the "Portrayal of racism" section. 173.61.139.203 (talk) 05:22, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Date of publication

message: Is the title an allusion to Fifth Column (disambiguation)?
Yes, it is such an allusion.  The idea is of these characters as a response to them, I think.
:I haven't read the book for many years, but if my memory's right, there's a passage early in the book explaining that a fifth column consists of enemy agents working against the invaded nation while this is an organization of patriots working to overthrow the invaders, making them a sixth column not a fifth.  JDZeff (talk) 18:10, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Self-published reviews like that generally aren't linked from Wikipedia. If you ever get it published somewhere besides your own web site, feel free to bring it up again. IPSOS (talk) 04:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fifth Column 

message: I don't have access to my copies of the book, but I've been discussing it with friends, and I suspect that some of the most racist text may have been removed from later editions (just as later editions of The Story of Doctor Dolittle are universally expurgated).
Specifically, after Japanese-American Frank Mitsui is coagulated to death while saving the heroes from the mad Calhoun, one of them says as a tribute: "He may have been a yellow man, but he was white inside".
That line is apparently missing from later editions. I realize that this is original research, and therefore shouldn't be added to the main article, but it's a point that I thought deserves some future examination. 
It also has always struck me as an (unintentionally?) macabre line, since the coagulated Mitsui was (in my recollection) compared to a hard-boiled egg - which is, of course, white inside (albeit with a yellow center). PMaranci 14:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But any future examination will need references, so someone would need to find an original edition. — Val42 04:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, wouldn't looking it up in the original edition be considered original research? To discuss a work of art, wouldn't we need to reference secondary sources instead of the work itself? Applejuicefool (talk) 20:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Seeing if the line is in the original but not in subsequent editions would be something that anyone could do.  I don't think that this would be original research. — Val42 (talk) 05:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Cuts if any would have been made to the original Astounding serial (1941). Usually though the book version is an expansion of the serial, and/or restoration of text cut for length in the magazine. In a country invaded by Asians, to not have common racial epithets would be absurd, despite how they appear now. 202.81.249.14 (talk) 08:20, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Racist Text Edits? 

message: I took out everything dealing with suppositions of racism or not hinging on book references;  that is OR.  Having just read the book, the later "race-base" comes from adjusting to resonating frequencies of hemoglobin (because every race has its own), but there was no claim made as to minorities, etc., initially - the Ledbetter effect also spared the mice and rats because it was oscillating across the "human" spectrum.  Mitsui's wife, by the way, could very well have been Mexican (it being California), because the book says "brown children", not "black" as the article here states.  There's very little in the way of race explicitly stated other than that the PanAsians are basically within their racial stereotypes, but are not Chinese or Japanese.
My point here is not whether something differs in relation to a particular edition, or what the text says, but more the fact that this is a story, and that presuming author intention through a work of fiction when the author has not indicated that intent (New Criticism, anyone?) is very definitely OR and not appropriate for an encyclopedic article (synthesis, speculation, and primary source are all involved - pick one).  Thus, I have removed everything cited from the book in the racism section and any points depending on it. MSJapan (talk) 21:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Racism re-edit 

message: In all the discussion concerning racism, there is one topic conspicuous by its absence - from both the book and the discussion. Where is the "black" or African-American element of the American population? The book seems to have two ethnic elements - White and Asian (Panasian or Asian American - Mitsui & family). The entire scientific basis of weaponry as per the book is based on differentiating between whites and Asians. The history as used for background refers to actual realpolitik between China, the Soviets and India leading to war with the United States. Realpolitik would also need to account for any change in the makeup of the United States - specifically why the United States is now all white with some Asians who are being eliminated by the Panasians. In the final war episodes, the troops are told to shoot anything that moves - they can't hurt a white man, but it is death to all Asians. That being the case, it is odd that there is no mention anywhere in the book of the African-American population of the United States - it is as if they do not exist. And that, to my mind, is the real issue of racism in the book - the elephant in the room no-one mentions. Ptilinopus (talk) 23:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elephant in the room? 

message: The word "unpublishable" was used twice in the article.  I changed the first instance to "unpublished" but left the second -- BUT would ask: WHO says it was "unpublishable"? Seems to me that this is a POV word -- shouldn't it be sourced?  If it was Heinlein, himself, say, writing about it in one of his commentaries somewhere, shouldn't that be noted? Hayford Peirce (talk) 18:16, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "unpublishable" 

message: Aleksandr Dugin describes or better said defines the general political meaning of the 6th column: "the fifth column which just pretends to be something different" (29 April 2014). See: Aleksandr_Dugin#Fifth_column
So, shouldn't there be another article about this or an additional chapter in this article?
Mirriam shares this definition: 6th Column Manorainjan 08:06, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second meaning (political)