Talk:Paul Robeson/Archive 1

message: Was Robeson EVER a member of the Communist Party?  Paul Robeson Jr. denies that he ever was, and I am not aware of any evidence indicating that he was.  Attention to detail matters; the fact that Robeson had many communist friends does not necessarily make him a communist himself.  This was the essence of Robeson's battle to win back his passport.
Was Robeson denied a passport? in the UK you are entitled to a passport if you are a citizen by birth or naturalisation. It can be temporarily surrendered by a person on bail for a criminal offence, but not permanently withdrawn. 
Is US law different?; it seems unlikely in a democracy that a person's basic right to travel can be annulled by government fiat without any criminal conviction. jimfbleak 12:33 20 May 2003 (UTC)
:It does, doesn't it? That was a bad time in US history. Vicki Rosenzweig
::It's STILL illegal for foreign-born anarchists to enter the US, or so I hear.  Any time a democracy feels threatened you can watch 'basic rights' go down the tube.
**PR passport was revoked. However, he filed a lawsuit to reinstate it and eventually the US Supreme Court "ruled that a citizen’s right to travel could not be taken away without due process and Robeson’ passport was returned." 
(http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6440/) 
There were many Americans on the Left who dismissed indications of Stalin's real nature as U.S. Cold War propoganda. In the post-war years, for example, they convinced themselves that those who were silenced or sent to Siberia had been saboteurs and/or agents of the Nazis.
What American communists supported was certainly not purges of a bloody dictator's real and imagined enemies but what they believed the Soviet Union represented: an end to racism; health care, affordable housing, nourishing food, and free education for all; and a society in which those who do the work make the decisions. In classical communism, the state is supposed to wither away, not grow every stronger and more invasive into the private lives of the citizens. 
The objective of the article is to highlight Mr. Robeson's life and career in encyclopedic format.  One of the best ways to do this is to highlight the aspects of his life that were central or important to him in a way that does not slander him.  Many aspects of his activism have been noted but one major one has been thus far ignored:  the association with the Marxist/Leninist school of thought.  I think that the opening vignette of a conversation or article about Paul Robeson that ignores his sympathies for the Soviet Union and its system would be as incomplete as an the opening vignette of an article about Muhammad Ali that ignores his devotion to Islam.  Therefore, I have added the title "Communist Sympathizer" in the first paragraph accordingly.  This adjective phrase is neither slanderous nor does it unduly label him a "Communist" but rather highlights this aspect of his life that many, including the sources cited below, would maintain is CENTRAL to his life.  --71.211.171.182 05:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  He may not have been a card carrying member of the Communist Party, but he sure seemed to go out of his way to offer support and sympathies to the Soviet Union, Communism, Socialism, and even Stalin himself.  Robeson himself would probably even agree with the phrase describing him as a Communist sympathizer.  --Tbkflav 05:20, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that the lede should mention Robeson's support of the Soviet Union, but the problem is the phrase "Communist sympathiser" — and its slanderous link to "Communist." Robeson was a supporter of the Soviet Union, but there is no indication that he supported Communism, socialism, or Marxism. Let's try to come up with a phrase that describes known facts about his politics, not speculation. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 17:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Communist Party Member? 

message: I have protected this page due to an excessive number of reverts today. Please resolve the controversy over the Smith Act material on the talk page. Thanks. -- Viajero 17:32, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Trying an unprotect to see how it goes. But please behave. Shanes 02:46, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  page protected 

message: How many languages was Robeson fluent in?  It says "...conversant in over 20..." in the article.  Can we be more specific?  (A bulleted list with a breakdown by proficiency level would be nice).  Did he know German and Yiddish?  What about Russian? By conversant in 20 languages do we mean familiar with or able to carry on a basic conversation, or was he just able to get the accent right for performing, without the lyrics neccesarily being intelligible?
The reason I'm asking is because I want to know if he can be defined as a true polyglot.  I think that his earning a law degree, studying languages and history at Oxford, and still displaying his prodigious acting and singing ability while making time for outstanding atheletic acheivement when he was younger are all sufficient to keep him in the polymath category regardless, but it would be nice to know if we can add polyglot as well.--Jpbrenna 22:28, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polyglot? 

message: No sooner had I finished adding information from three African-American sources (Roy Wilkins, Robeson's autobiography, and from Robeson's granddaughter), along comes TDC (aka Ten Dead Chickens) to erase both saying they belong somewhere else. There appears to be severe racial and anti-communist bias in this article. I ask TDC to explain why he deleted viewpoints that do not concur with his own? TDC says on his personal user page that he is anti-communist. Trying to force this viewpoint down the throats of the public and the Wiki community violates the neutral viewpoint of Wikipedia. This is a request for an explanation for editing that appears to be racially insensitive and non neutral.skywriter 22:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the anti-Robeson bias? Why the anti-communist bias? Why the anti-black reference bias? 

message: Ten Dead Chickens: This appears to be a violation of  with respect to lack of respect for other contributors. Please explain the edit reversing a short quote from Paul Robeson discussing his father. Please explain why you think what you reverted it to is both non-neutral and an improvement over what Robeson himself said about his father. Do you think his viewpoint should be excluded from this article? And if so, on what basis?  skywriter 23:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''The Non-Neutral Viewpoint Violates Wiki Policy''' 

message: This is a Second Request for Explanation and a Protest Against Bias, a Violation of Wikipedia Policy
Specifically, I would like an explanation why Ten Dead Chickens deleted the following two sentences:
In the prologue to his autobiography, Robeson said of his father, Born a plantation slave in Martin County, North Carolina, my father escaped at the age of fifteen, in 1860, and made his way North on the Underground Railroad. In 1876, after working his way through Lincoln University, he married my mother, Maria Louisa Bustill, a school teacher in nearby Philadelphia."
These two sentences are more detailed and more interesting than those to which TDC reverted. That Robeson's mother was a Philadelphia school teacher appears nowhere else in the article. 
Why were these sentences removed? And why were they removed without any discussion at all on this Talk page?
Aside from the bias aspect, Ten Dead Chickens violated Wikipedia policy by reverting this article three times in one day. Why? I look forward to the reply. skywriter 09:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Is User Engaging in NonProductive Edit War for Ideological Reasons?''' 

message: Robeson accepted the Stalin Prize in recognition of the efforts of himself and others to stop President Harry S. Truman from dropping a third nuclear bomb in Asia. The United States is the only country to use nuclear weapons, having dropped two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In accepting the Stalin Prize, Robeson said, "We know how Truman betrayed the American people in their hopes for peace, how he betrayed the Negro people in their thirst for equal rights, how he tore up the Bill of Rights and subjected the whole American people to a reign of FBI-terrorization.
"The Korean war has always been an unpopular war among the American people. We remember the unforgivable trickery in the use of the United Nations to further the purposes of 'American century' imperialists in that land-quite comparable to the taking of Texas from Mexico, the rape of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. At one point American peace sentiment helped to stop Truman from pursuing use of the atom bomb in Korea and helped force the recall of MacArthur." 
Robeson sounded an early alarm to stop U.S. efforts to replace the warring French in Southeast Asia, saying, "There are real threats of attempting to support France on a major scale in Indo-China." 
In his acceptance speech, Robeson said he was confident black people would support the peace movement because the continuing war in Korea would harm the struggle for civil rights. "We know that war would mean an end to our struggle for civil rights, FEPC (Fair Employment Practices Committee), the right to vote, an anti-lynching law, (and) abolition of segregation." 
Robeson sided with those who were sympathetic to the struggles of black people in the United States, saying, "...the Negro people watch Africa and Asia and closely follow the liberation struggles of the rising peoples in these lands. We watch the United Nations and see the U.S.A. join with the western imperialist nations to stifle the liberation struggles. We cannot help but see that it is ...the spokesman of the Eastern European Peoples Democracies who defend and vote for the interests of the African and Asian peoples." [Ibid] skywriter 12:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Acceptance of the Stalin Prize in His Own Words 

message: Ten Dead Chickens appears to be engaging in an aggressive editing war. This should stop. 
This entry is for the Wiki record that Ten Dead Chickens (cur) (last)  21:35, 8 February 2006 TDC
deleted this factual content without explanation or discussion on this Talk Page. 
		 
-	The biography by Martin Duberman states that Robeson was not a member of the Communist Party.
This is a pertinent fact germane to the fairness of this article as currently presented. This fact is sourced to the biographer whom Ten Dead Chickens previously cited. This fact introduces nuance that Ten Dead Chickens addresses aggressvely by deleting it. This deletion demonstrates aggressive rigidity in viewpoint -- a POV unwilling or unable to accept nuance or grey area. Inability to accept viewpoints inconsistent with one's personal viewpoint violates this Wiki policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines  2.	Avoid bias. Articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing all differing views on a subject, factually and objectively, in an order which is agreeable to a common consensus.
In the interest of avoiding an editing war, this is a request to Ten Dead Chickens to reverse this deletion or explain the basis for deletion of the fact that Robeson was not a member of the communist party, as stated explicitly in the Duberman biography. In the spirit of seeking consensus and a neutral point of view, this renews earlier requests for summary explanations for deletions.  skywriter 22:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And why was all the information in your recent edits removed? Ten Dead Chickens 14:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I made no changes to any of your content edits  I only added material you deleted. Also, I work for a living as well and unless you have some evidence that I "acted in concert with tbull", I would not go down that line of inquiry. Ten Dead Chickens 16:24, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for explanation of deletion 

message: I suggest that Robeson's encounter with and betrayal of Feffer be annotated with footnotes.  To facilitate this, I have added TDC's references to the bottom of the article. 
TDC--Would you mind adding the cites?--Jbull 17:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do see a reason to include it; it is symptomatic of Robeson's refusal to speak out against Stalin and the USSR.--Jbull 02:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proper Citation for Itzik Feffer Story 

message: I just did a major reworking of the Politics, Communism and Cold War section.  I added subsections, removed direct quotes where appropriate and tried for a NPOV, encyclopedic approach.  Please let me know what you think.--Jbull 22:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Politics, Communism and Cold War Edits 

message: <blockquote
This section repeats the request for documentation asked for above and ignored. These words do not appear on page 353 of the Duberman biography. Chickens must withdraw this claim because he has not provided documentation in any edition of the Duberman biography to support this factual claim. This is an issue of Fact, not Point of View, and Must Be Addressed for the Continuation of Good Faith. </blockquote> 
The exchange follows for clarity.
Chickens wrote:
: He was asked because he knew Feffer and Mikhoels and was traveling to the USSR, and no one had heard from either one of them in a while. Pg 353 Duberman. Ten Dead Chickens 21:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please read the source before you begin attacking me again. Ten Dead Chickens 21:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: There are several variation on the exact details Robesons trip to Moscow in 1949, Duberman Rappaport, and Radosh. It is a minor detail, whether he was asked or did it after hearing about Mikhoels' death. If you bothered to follow the edit changes, you would have realized that this was reflected in my last edit. Please calm down. Ten Dead Chickens 15:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inserting Factually False Information Violates All Standards of Scholarship and Good Faith 

message: One of the problems of Wikipedia, of course, is that anyone may contribute in any way, without citing scholarly research, or engaging in scholarly skepticism about sources (e.g., journalistic sources are often inaccurate, so one must look for multiple sources for the same info; so if the ANZAC article below is the only one that mentions Robeson's view of the 1956 uprising, than it should be discounted). For anyone interested in Robeson, I highly recommend the following *scholarly* biographies, both of which provide detailed scholarly apparatus, and are thoroughly researched: Martin Duberman, _Paul Robeson_; Andrew Bunie & Sheila Boyle, _Paul Robeson: The Years of Promise And Achievement_ (U of Mass. Press). For a nearly exhaustive collection of Robeson's speeches and public commentary, everyone interested in RObeson should look at Philip S. Foner, _Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, and Interviews_ (Citadel press). Finally, whether one thinks it was a wise choice or not, the reason Robeson did not speak out against Stalin in the U.S. to the press (though he did, despite physical danger in the USSR), was, according to his son and his letters (and his actions, such as the Truman anti-lynching delegation) that he felt that to denounce the USSR would be to give ammunition to the forces of reaction in the U.S. who continued to oppress (and lynch!) African-Americans. He naively expected that the Soviet guarantees of racial equality would eventually be upheld. One can disagree with his reasoning and his choice, but there was a specific concern for civil rights behind it. 70.19.136.8
: Sorry, I just dont buy it. Robeson was taken in by the most vicious propagator (Stalin) of the most vicious cult of the 20th century (Stalinism). As intelegent as he was, he should have know better, but his hate of the United States, and lets call a spade a spade, drove him to embrace anything that opposed it. His folly is that of DuBois and Neruda, and there are no apologies or excuses for for it. We dont come up with half assed excuses for Leni Riefenstahl or Oswald Mosley.  Ten Dead Chickens 23:35, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are going to accuse me of violating the 3RR, please look up the difference between reverts and edits.  If you still think that I am violating Wikipedia rules, alert a moderator and have me suspended.--Jbull 02:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: That was Gamaliel, not me.--Jbull 04:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that was me.  I have no objection to such a link provided it is done in the proper way of linking to other wikipedia articles.  See Wikipedia:Links. Gamaliel 04:33, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Robeson was an enthusiastic Communist and supporter of Stalin at the height of the Cold War.  Partly as a result of this, he was investigated by the FBI and HUAC, left the US and fell from prominence as an entertainer.  Despite Robeson's humanitarian sympathies, he was an unswerving supporter of one of the most repressive regimes in history.  Despite his sympathies for the oppressed, Robeson refused to speak up in the West for Feffer.  Robeson attacked the HUAC for being fascists, but wrote an ode to Josef Stalin, who killed millions.  To ignore these inconvenient facts would be to simplify Robeson's messy, fascinating life.  Edits to sanitize Robeson's life will be reverted.--Jbull 14:46, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: "Stop the editing war. Stop removing facts you don't personally approve of." Where in God's name do you get off saying this? You have removed large amounts of material from the article simply because they don’t portray this "remarkable man" in a good light. I suggest you simmer down and stop hurling accusations against people, when you are equally guilty, if not more so in most cases. Ten Dead Chickens 15:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: You are correct, it is not policy to make an editorial value on the subject, but the removal of information which may be seen as critical to Robeson is a defacto editorial policy, as whitewashing usually is. I could care less how this article fits into BHM, that is not my concern as this is not an episode of the Tavis Smiley show. At least you have finally acknowledged that what you are attempting to move is "factual". The insertion of  opinionated text is entirely congruent with Wiki's editorial policy unless the opinions are "fringe", which these are most certainly not. Many of Robeson’s critics have pointed to his Stalinist lap-doggery and his silence on Feffer’s fate. Ten Dead Chickens 17:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Recent Edits 

message: New editors, please note that you do not link to Wikipedia articles in the same fashion that you would to an external website.  Please see Wikipedia:Links.  Gamaliel 03:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links 

message: In continuing acts of aggression, Jbull has again ignored the conversation on this Talk page that itemize the many and various disputes over biased editing in this article in favor of summarily and without discussion delete the newer version of this article that takes out the contentious points and asked, on this Talk page, to discuss further edits before adding to this page. Jbull has reverted to the disputed version which ignores the many solid biographies written about Paul Robeson in favor of a narrow ideological agenda.skywriter 15:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stop the Editing War 

message: Colored by an aggressively non-neutral point of view, JBull distorted a footnoted fact by inserting his opinion of a citation that properly summarized a fact that appeared in The New York Times. The disputed sentence is as follows: 
After he gained infamy for his Communist ties, his name was struck from the roster of the 1917 and 1918 college All-America football teams. [September 26, 1982, The New York Times,]
Specifically, JBull added the phrase After he gained infamy for his Communist ties, to the above sentence, leaving the reader to conclude that appeared in the NYT when it did not. JBull's opinion should be removed as it is prejudicial and does not belong in an encyclopedic article. Jbull has re-inserted this prejudicial and highly inflammatory phrase many times in the last several weeks, despites its removal for cause. Jbull violates wikiopeian trust and spirit, disrupting Wikopedian operations in pursuit of an extreme rightwing ideological agenda. skywriter 15:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Robeson's name was indeed struck from the All-American list in 1949 because of his Communist ties, as this pro-Robeson website confirms.--Jbull 16:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Please suggest a rephrasing, then, that retains the reason why he was struck from the All-American list without being inflammatory.--Jbull 17:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distortion of a Citation 

message: why is the citation needed template in this form: ? why not just use the template like this ? I'm talking specifically about the "Investigations" section under "Politics, Communism, and the Cold War".--Alhutch 17:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: this one  leads to the template page, which doesn't really help you that much. this one  leads to Wikipedia:Citing sources, which is a helpful page. adding tl before the name gives you this display , which is not how a template is intended to be used.--Alhutch 17:22, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm gonna go ahead and switch the templates with AutoWikiBrowser's find and replace function.--Alhutch 19:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: done.--Alhutch 23:45, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  citation needed template 

message: The following appears at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:W.E.B._DuBois&action=edit§ion=6
and applies equally to the passionate folks who have hijacked this Robeson article. 
For the benefit of TDC, I'm posting here the text of the listing on RfC for this page and Pablo Neruda: "Were these historical figures actually "Stalinists"? If so, is this fact important enough to include in the introductions to these articles? Is it true that they actually performed the pro-Soviet activities listed in their articles? How much space should be devoted to such activities compared to the activities they are famous for to the general public?" Gamaliel 18:16, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion both DuBois and Neruda can be called "Stalinists" only by enormously expanding the meaning of the word, to the point where (as Sam Spade has it above) a "Stalinist" is not an explicit backer of Stalin's policies and positions, but instead, by default, anyone who was a Communist or sympathetic to Communism, and not a Maoist or Trotskyist, during Stalin's time in power, and/or anyone who ever said a nice thing about Stalin.  To use this broad a sense of the word is a tendentious distortion of its usual meaning.  Therefore, my opinion is (a) that it makes little sense to call either one a Stalinist and (b) that their pro-Soviet positions are not the most significant points about either one, and should be treated only briefly in their articles.  I have little taste for the partisan bickering and edit-warring which characterize most of the edits to this article, so I'm unwatching it and moving on to other topics.  But it seems a shame to allow the kind of naked POV-pushing that might be expected on current politics spread into articles on major intellectual  and artistic figures.  Let's not waste more time re-fighting the Cold War when a better article on either DuBois or Neruda would be so easy to create. -- Rbellin|Talk 02:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Robeson's lapdoggery for Stalin and the USSR were not minor incidents in his life, its what drove him and his political activism from 1930 till his death. I realize now that with DuBois, it was just a passing intellectual fancy, like DuBois's awe of Imperial Japan. Neruda to saw, or at least he claimed to, the “folly” of his way. Robeson, however, was very publicly faithful all the way to the end. Ten Dead Chickens 19:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  For the Record= 

message: A lot of time has been spent on this business about Feffer, and he is a minor character in Robeson's life. Still, the current and majority of the versions on this page manage to consistently get the facts wrong. Why is that?
For example, the January 26 version of this biographical article opined:  
"The story of Itzik Feffer is an example of the lengths Paul Robeson would go to to defend the communist Soviet Union."
In the weeks since then, two individuals have daily reverted the work of everyone who has edited this page to make this opinion the central fact of Robeson's life, thereby massively distorting what all of the books focusing on Robeson say.
I too am being driven away but before leaving, there should be a record of what has transpired for the benefit of anyone who wants to pursue this.
On February 15, 2006, User Jbull added the following reference to the Paul Robeson article:
Revision as of 17:48, 15 February 2006
Jbull (Talk | contribs)
News References
Newer edit ?
Line 95: 	Line 95:
    	+  	==Other References==
  	+ 	
  	+ 	Rappaport, Louis, Stalin's War Against the Jews: The Doctors Plot & The Soviet Solution, Free Press (October 1, 1990) ISBN: 0029258219
Information in the Robeson article continued to be built around Rapaport's opinion. Note the proper spelling is Rapoport. The substance of the article, which has now become the central feature of the article on Robeson's life accuses Robeson of not speaking up for Feffer. Repeatedly erased from this article are the facts that Robeson defied the Soviet regime before a large concert audience in Moscow in defense of Feffer and the man Feffer, a KGB agent, was accused of helping to murder. Robeson died 15 years before the allegation that Feffer helped murder Mikhoels. Maybe he suspected Feffer of being KGB and was backing away. Whatever.  
As information introduced into any Wikipedia article is subject to verification, I read the book.  
First off, there is nothing new about Robeson in this book, no original research whatsoever, just pure opinion.
Second, a central feature is Rapaport's claim that Feffer helped set up the murder of Solomon Mikhoels, chairman of the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee. Rapaport, who is deceased, sources his information about Feffer to KGB files released after the fall of the Soviet Union and interviews he conducted with the daughters of Solomon Mikhoels.  
So, this is a lot of information that has nothing to do with Paul Robeson in this Robeson article. Why is that? 
But conveniently left out of the many reversions and erasures that have been exhibited on this page in the last few weeks that I've been watching is anything resembling the truth or fair play toward the subject of this article.
Aggressive folks who have systematically deleted biographical information about Robeson, replace it with false and inflammatory information & personal viewpoint do violence to the concept and reputation of Wikipedia. 
Many books have been written focusing on Paul Robeson's life. Many articles on the Internet discuss Robeson's life and contributions to the fight against racism in the U.S. and in particular his work against the lynching of black people. Other facets of Robeson's life, including the role of McCarthyism in destroying his career, have been deleted from this Wikipedia page and replaced with fringe attacks on his character. None of the books that explore Robeson's life or the mainstream articles on the Internet that describe Robeson's life reflect the vicious slant exhibited in this Wikipedia article. Why is that? 
Another example of the false information introduced into this article with the purpose of smearing Robeson is the inclusion of the reference to rightwing Hudson Institute historian Ronald Radosh's book on the Rosenbergs into this article about Paul Robeson. Anyone who checks this book out of any library will quickly find this is not a source of information about Paul Robeson. In 616 pages, there is one reference to Robeson, a footnote on p. 563 directing the reader to a magazine article. The magazine article is a proper reference on the Robeson page. The Radosh book is not. Why let facts get in the way of passionately held opinion? 
Here's another fact here that has been suppressed in the near constant series of deletions and reverts.
Despite the aggressive attempts by the folks who edit these page to prove Robeson did nothing on behalf of Feffer, there is evidence to the contrary, but it is not allowed on this page. Now the folks who insist on the false version of events claim Robeson's son backs their account. But he does not. He says exactly the opposite and he says it right here: 
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-6/robeson3.html 
Robeson Jr. says:  What happened to Pfeffer is that he and his colleagues, who had been arrested, survived for three more years. They were finally executed just before the Doctors' Plot in 1952 and one of the reasons that they did survive is that dad followed up by writing a letter direct to Stalin, through diplomatic channels, along with Howard Fast, the famous left-wing writer here and Fredericolio Curie, who was the famous French physicist and a Communist. So it was one of the factors at least which deterred their execution for some time. It's also noteworthy that dad certainly took a risk in that it's inconceivable to me that the release of Pfeffer to come see him was ordered by anybody other than Stalin himself, even the head of the Secret Police, Ben Berria would never have dared to do that without checking with quote the boss.
Like I was saying, the insistence on and aggressive reversions to false information do violence to Wikipedia's credibility. 
Before I took an interest in this article, one of the folks with a deep and abiding hatred of fairness and neutrality removed the following sentence :
Although Robeson is one of the "Great Forerunners " in Black equality, the McCarthy era virtually erased his memory from the consciousness of younger Americans. He was conversant in over 20 languages, and at one time carried enough clout to be considered for a vice presidential spot on Henry A. Wallace's 1948 ticket. His singing voice was a sonorous bass-baritone once described thus: "If God should come to earth and sing, He would sound something like Paul Robeson." 
While I did not write that sentence, its importance is both clear and now suppressed, at least on Wikipedia. The truth of that statement is reflected in all of the biographies of Robeson, and is nowhere explored in this article that is deeply prejudiced toward Robeson. That is why this article is stamped "The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed."
There's a lot more that could make this an outstanding article, because the subject is intriniscally interesting,  but I see no point in continuing. Factual contributions are continually reverted and deleted in favor of extreme rightwing ideology. 
I may stop working on this article except to make certain the stamp "The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed" stays on it. That way people who come by will know to go elsewhere for fact. 
=30- 
skywriter 02:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are facts about Feffer Distorted to the Point of Being False in This Article? 

message: Robeson and Feffer
Skywriter--
I agree that Robeson and Feffer were minor figures in each others' lives.  I actually have no philosophical objection to removing all references to Feffer from Robeson's page and vice versa.  But if the two are going to be referenced in each others' entries, I think that all relevant facts should be included.
It seems to me that your major objections are to (1) the inclusion of Robeson Jr.'s quote that his father kept quiet about Feffer in the West, and (2) to Feffer's condition when he met Robeson while in custody.  I think these are both important, and should be retained.
Further, it seems as though you object to references to Robeson's Stalinism, yet you wish to include Robeson's personal appeal to Stalin on Feffer's behalf.  I think both are relevent.
Please let me know what other items you find objectionable.
I am more than happy to reach a consensus, and I have no wish to include non-facts in the article.  But by the same token, inconvenient facts are still facts.
Shall we continue this on the articles' talk pages?  You have my permission to paste this comment there, if you wish.
Best Regards,
--Jbull 02:55, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for Suggestions to Resolve Article Issues 

message: Paul Robeson was, in no particular order,
# A great singer,
# A Communist/Stalinist,
# A social activist, and  
# A trailblazing athelete and scholar.
The arc of his life, to me, was as follows:  Robeson excelled in college academics and athletics, at a time when relatively few other African-Americans attended college.  Turning to the world of entertainment, Robeson, a gifted performer, became famous.  His stage performances were extremely well received, and several of his performances became iconic.  Stung by the daily racism he faced, Robeson, already a socialist, became politically radicalized.  Robeson became especially attached to the USSR.  He became a lifelong supporter of the Soviet Union and an apologist for Josef Stalin, even after Stalin's atrocities were made public.  Because of his Communist ties and radicalism, Robeson was investigated by the FBI and Congress, and had his passport taken away, while his career faltered.  Recovering his passport, he moved overseas, where he continued his career.  His career never fully recovered, and in his later life he became depressed and died.
Is this that objectionable?  Is anything in this untrue?  Does this distort his life in some way?
I invite Skywriter, Ten Dead Chickens and other interested parties to draft their own one-paragraph precis of Robeson's life.  If we can agree on the outline, we can then draft an article that fairly represents his whole life--the good, the bad and the controversial--Jbull 03:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's be fair. Let's cite our sources. All of us. In the text. And no misleading, biased sentences, no introduction of false statements that support one viewpoint or another. Robeson was controversial. He was not a member of the Communist Party although he was close friends with lots of communists. His story has complexity. Holgate leads the way here by writing carefully documented facts in the Wales segment. skywriter 15:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please post your preferred paragraph outline of Robeson's life.  Once we agree on that, we can fill it out and cite away.--Jbull 22:51, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This Article Is A Mess:  A Proposal 

message: Thank you for suggesting an outline, Jbull but it will not help, not at this point. What will help is for you to answer the many questions from the last four weeks that ask why you erased and reverted factual material aded to this article. This page is littered with those un-answered questions. 
There is enough here to suggest we may need the help of Wiki administrators/arbitrators to stop the edit warring. There is plenty of documentation on this page and in the history of this article to suggest that a variety of reasonable editors with no axe to grind have made contributions to this page but have had their contributions deleted, most recently the contributions of Holgate and now, again, some of my own. This must stop. Any editor who has an issue with a particular fact or sentence, can either edit it or discuss it, or talk to the editor/writer on the user talk page. That is the Wiki way, as I understand it. (Please correct if I am wrong.) But wholesale reverts have got to go. It is apparent that a couple of people who have taken a passionate interest in this page hate Robeson, the subject of this article, and have done everything possible, by serial edit warring, to make this article show Robeson in false light. These folks have added statements to the article that have been repeatedly proven false, and yet the same lies keep re-appearing albeit slightly refined, again and then, again. When the statements are proven false, these editors move the goalpost instead of addressing the issue at hand. Falsifying scholarship, introducing false statements, and misrepresenting or outright falsifying what is in history books and biographies severely tests the Wiki goal of assuming good faith. 
There are many articles about Paul Robeson on the Internet and in library books. None (except one article and one book, both representing a particular Cold War, rightwing viewpoint) suggests that Stalinism for its own sake was his obsession, and yet we are faced with several people here whose viewpoint it is to insist, with every edit of this article, that "Stalinism" must be the central focus of this article. In the face of the vast scholarship to the contrary, that suggests obsession. 
With that aggressive single-mindedness, these editors have systematically deleted biographical facts about Robeson's life that do not support their viewpoint, a viewpoint, which, by the way, does not even appear in the U.S. government pages describing Robeson. Communism and McCarthyism were controversial facts of life in the mid-20th century, and many people's lives and careers were destroyed. There are many sides to those stories. Historians have addressed this, and surely will continue to address it. And yet, certain folks right here on Wikipedia are fighting hard to keep the legacy of this man and this article stuck in a time warp. It is not our job to inflict our personal viewpoints on readers who come to Wikipedia. It is our job to tap the scholarship of others and fairly represent it here. This article suffers foremost from the injection of the Cold War, non-neutral viewpoint that Robeson deserved to be banned from international travel and to have had his career destroyed because he befriended communists. Sorely missing from that analysis is the central focus of Robeson's life --his art, and when he could not sing or act in theaters by walking in the front door, racism slammed him in the face, and his art became political. Robeson lived the majority of his life at a time when segregation was the law of the land in the United States. As I have written elsewhere on this page, his motive was quite simple. He hated being treated like crap, and he liked when he was not treated like crap. He had the talent and wherewithall to get away from the racism, and he did that by going overseas. Robeson, like every black person in the U.S., suffered countless humiliations on a daily basis during the years of segregation and Jim Crow. To ignore this is to ignore history. One of the many contributions to this page that were erased was Robeson's explanation that he felt full human dignity in the Soviet Union, and that is why he sang there and in other countries where he was loved and valued for his art and his principles, and not because of the color of his skin.
Among the many documented facts deleted today (by Jbull) is that the U.S. State Department confiscated Robeson's passport because he spoke out against racism overseas. The previous version contained an undocumented claim that his passport was taken in consort with HUAC. That is just plain false, showing no attention to history or detail or documentation and a lot of attention to viewpoint. Yes, the previous version lacked documentation. The State Department story added today contained explicit documentation. The reversion of this key segment violates many Wiki rules, suggesting, once again that it really is time to bring in whatever arbitration mechanism exists at Wikipedia. 
The issue before anyone interested in contributing to this article is whether it will continue to be hijacked by a couple of individuals who have no interest in the topic except to slander the man, and whose central contributions are to revert the contributions of other editors so that there is no change, no progress. This has been ongoing for too long now. I was very patient about it last month, and was careful not to revert. Time has come to stand up for Wikipedia rules. It is an abomination that the carefully documented work by Holgate last night (in the Wales segment) was reverted tonight by Jbull without discussion, and without an edit summary. I am not experienced with Wiki arbitration but see no way to make progress on this article without some standard of conduct and scholarship. The standard I am suggesting is that this article can and should reflect the wealth of documentation by serious scholars in the many books written about Robeson and articles, even on the Internet where Googling turns up many balanced articles about his life. It is not difficult to achieve a balanced article but it does take the desire to do so. skywriter 01:49, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I cleaned up the section on Robeson's association and relationship with Wales because it appears to be one of the least controversial, or at least the most obvious demonstration of arbitrary banner-slapping and a double-standard in demanding citations. Neither the basic chronology nor the ongoing regard for Robeson in Wales is in question, and while my edits doubtless can be tweaked, subjecting them to wholesale deliberate reverts (if that has happened; the history isn't clear) suggests a lack of seriousness towards creating a balanced article. Right now, there appears to be too much emphasis on hamstringing any attempts to do that. Holgate 12:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Please don't make this matter any more contentious than it already does, and please refrain from describing the edits of others as "vandalism".  Thank you. Gamaliel 04:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Editing. If you disagree with the edit, ask for an explanation, please do not make accusations.  Let's not escalate this already contentious edit war. Gamaliel 04:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I will ask Jbull to explain these reverts here. Let's give him a chance to respond. Gamaliel 04:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Please refer to my proposal above, which suggested that all interested parties agree on an outline for the article before wholesale edits were made.  Rather than contribute to this discussion, certain parties chose to repeat the same contentious edits.  These non-discussed edits were reverted.  The only way to get a good article is to agree beforehand on what it should say.--Jbull 16:44, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While it is a good idea to discuss cotnentious edits ahead of time, it is not a requirement.  You should not simply revert every single non-discussed edit without discussion yourself. Gamaliel 18:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please do not restart edit warring 

message: I did a general cleanup on Skywriter's latest version of this section.  I tried to preserve the information therein, while adhering to encyclopedic format.  Skywriter--please review this section.  Thanks,--Jbull 17:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robeson and the Soviet Union 

message: Skywriter--
Why did you remove the section on Robeson's investigation by HUAC and his refusal to deny that he was a Communist?--Jbull 17:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  HUAC 

message: Quick question for y'all...this article says the travel ban against Robeson was lifted in 1958, but he performed in two Canadian cities (Sudbury and Toronto) in 1956. Was he just flouting the ban at that point, or was the enforcement being loosened up, or is there actually an error in the date? If anybody could clarify, thanks. Bearcat 04:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind, I've found clarification — it has to do with the fact that travel from the US to Canada didn't require passports; the US government took different measures to prevent him from travelling to Canada on other occasions but didn't take them before the 1956 concerts. Bearcat 05:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question re: travel ban 

message: "[h]e was never a member of the CPUSA, never a functionary, never a participant in its daily bureaucratic operations." - page 418 - and told HUAC during his testimony that he was "not a communist" - page 308.  Whatever the claims of the CPUSA webpage, I think this is pretty conclusive from a legitimate source.  I'm going to revert the changes to the introduction based on this. Gamaliel 19:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duberman on Robeson and the communist party 

message: Millions had to join the Communist party to survive. Robeson was a free man, he came and went to the Soviet Union and accepted the regime.
Xx236 14:24, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paul Robeson was worse than a communist 

message: Stalin expelled national minorities and ordered mass executions.
Xx236 14:27, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone needs to find one because it is a very well known fact. It's mentioned many places in Wikipedia for a startPiccadilly 17:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robeson said he admired Stalin for the decisive role the Soviet leader played in encouraging national minorities 

message: This section makes it sound like the only grounds for considering Robeson naive about Stalin were on account of anti-Semitism, but he was actually being naive about a man who murdered millions, some on ethnic grounds, some for religion, some for political reasons, some out of sheer paranoia. Piccadilly 17:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV tag - Robeson defies Stalin 

message: The article attributes the following quote to Robeson:
:In a January 1935 interview for a publication called the “Daily Worker,” Robeson had these words for those who stood up the Kremlin: “Commenting on the recent execution after court-martial of a number of counter-revolutionary terrorists", Robeson declared roundly: "From what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot! It is the government's duty to put down any opposition to this really free society with a firm hand," he continued, "and I hope they will always do it, for I already regard myself at home here. This is home to me. I feel more kinship to the Russian people under their new society than I ever felt anywhere else. It is obvious that there is no terror here, that all the masses of every race are contented and support their government."
I question its veracity. First, its language is completely unlike anything I've ever read or heard from Robeson. Second, Duberman's biography (550 pages + 200 pages of notes) fails to mention it, despite a 30-page chapter concerning the 1935 visit to Moscow during which the interview was said to have taken place. Finally, The Daily Worker, the alleged source of the interview, was a CPUSA megaphone, and Revolutionary Democracy, the site at which the quote was found, describes itself as a journal "on the problems facing the communist movement, particularly relating to Russia, China and India...."
Of the two (Duberman and the Daily Worker), which is a reliable source? Which is more "credible"? Which author is "generally regarded as trustworthy"? — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 17:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have a look at this too please for an additional source. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't doubt that the Daily Worker printed the article, but I question whether the words are Robeson's. According to Duberman, when Robeson left Moscow and arrived in London he told a reporter his interest in the Soviet Union "was, and is, completely non-political" — an exaggeration, maybe even a lie, but how could a person have made such bold political statements in the press and weeks later deny any interest in Soviet politics? Of the London remarks, Duberman says "perhaps deliberately exaggerating his lack of interest in public so that in private he might be better able to mull over his options ... delaying overt public commitment until his instincts and his understanding could become consonant." Undoubtedly Duberman was well-acquainted with Foner's anthology, but unfortunately he doesn't mention the Daily Worker article in the text or in the footnote. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 18:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ahh .. I see what you are getting at. I know Duberman uses material from the Daily Worker in the biography (not in this case, but in other references). Why did Robeson say one thing to the reporter in Britain and one to the Daily Worker (if he did), perhaps he felt more comfortable? I don’t know but I think the point is moot, as we should move all the quotes to Wikiquote and exclude them from the article. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 18:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alleged quote from ''Daily Worker'' 

message: I think an important part of the Robeson story is his relationship with his wife, her more managerial role, rather than love interest. For me, that relationship was one of the most telling about the culture of African-Americans and the culture of the stage during this time period.
On NPR 8/8/07, there was a segment about how to cover a story that you have a stake in (here) that discussed how a reporter at the time tended to overlook the negative aspects of MLK, Jr. because he was such a great leader. The downplaying of Robeson's "running around" seems to be similar. Utopienne 18:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Home Life 

message: *Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company
*Paul Robeson Wales Trust
*Paul Robeson Community Elementary School
*Paul Robeson Elementary School
*Paul Robeson Gallery
These are all redlinks relating to Robeson. --evrik (talk) 18:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What to do with these?