Paul Robeson was a very interesting figure that I have been interested in recently. In Robeson’s life, he achieved many things in many fields. He was a singer, actor lawyer and civil rights activist. Robeson sang for Loyalist soldiers in Spain, spoke out against racism and took part in anti-Nazi demonstrations regularly. In his early life, Robeson became the third black person to study at Rutgers college and entered the cap and skull. Later, he would get a law degree, however his first law firm never let him practice a case as he was black. Due to not being able to practice cases due to racism, Robeson pursued a career in acting and singing. With critically-acclaimed performances, Robeson would later do a Royal Performance in London. Universal Pictures would later hire him to act in Showboat, which made him more famous. In 1934, Robeson would visit the USSR with an invite from a Russian filmmaker. He would get to the Soviet Union through Nazi Germany, as the US had a travel ban to the USSR, and almost got attacked by the SA in Germany. Robeson often fought against colonialism, imperialism and racism. Robeson spoke with many black Americans who had immigrated to the USSR, and was in awe at the racial equality in the country. On black rights in the USSR, Paul Robeson said, “Here, I am not a negro but a human being for the first time in my life. I walk in full human dignity.” When his son teaches schooling age, Robeson put him in a Moscow school, saying he doesn’t want his son to have the “same discrimination that he had faced growing up in the United States.”
After Stalin’s death in 1953, Robeson wrote an article named “To you, beloved comrade,” where he would praise the leader and recall the time he sang in a theatre for an audience with him.
“Here was clearly a man who seemed to embrace all. So kindly—I can never forget that warm feeling of kindliness and also a feeling of sureness. Here was one who was wise and good—the world and especially the socialist world was fortunate indeed to have his daily guidance. I lifted high my son Paul to wave to this world leader, and his leader.”
Robert Robinson, a black American who had immigrated to the USSR, also recalled a time when Robeson had an “unpleasant confrontation” with Khrushchev. After Robeson asked about if the rumours of institutionalised anti-Semitism under Khrushchev and purging of Jewish members was true, Khrushchev had blown up at him accusing him of, “meddling in party affairs.” Robinson wrote that Robeson was never mentioned in Soviet press and his songs were never played on Radio Moscow again after this confrontation.
Pictured above: Paul Robeson and Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, (1956).
After showing anti-colonial (such as when visiting Australia, he used a television appearance to denounce the treatment of indigenous people by the Australian governor), anti-imperialist and support for the Soviet Union, the US began to crack down on Robeson.
Video above: Paul Robeson speaking on rights of African Americans and ethnic minorities on ABC Australia (Spotlight, 1960).
In 1949, after a speech in Paris, the American press began to attack Robeson, after he said that African Americans would never fight in a war against the Soviet Union as that would be fighting against their own rights as human beings, which caused 80 concerts to be cancelled and a drop in shops that would sell his records. Shortly after, the US state department refused to renew Robeson’s passport, unless he signs an agreement swearing he was not a communist. After being barred from travelling abroad, he was summoned to the HUAC committee, an anti-communist committee to oust communists, as he refused to swear he wasn’t a communist, (recording in 3rd and 4th slide).
Videos above: Paul Robeson speaking at the HUAC Hearing, where he is questioned on his suspected communist sympathies and activities.
The US government banned Robeson from appearing on radios and TVs to end his career. Eventually, his passport was renewed in 1958, after the US declared it was a right of all citizens to travel abroad. After this, Robeson had a concert in Moscow where he first performed the Soviet anthem in English.
After failed attempts by the US government to silence Robeson, they would attempt to silence him through the MK Ultra program. After a party in Moscow, where many uninvited American guests had appeared, the family believed a spy had put something into Paul’s drink that caused him to have the same affects as the program was supposed to have on people, from a drug only available to the CIA at the time. The hotel manager once came in and found Robeson in a drug-induced state with his wrists cut, something that happened to many MK Ultra victims. Paul Robeson Jr had investigated this illness for 30 years and had concluded it was a synthetic hallucinogen called BZ, only available by US intelligence operatives at the time. After being admitted to a hospital when he travelled back to London, psychiatrists forced him to endure 54 electro-shock treatments, which was a favoured technique of CIA behaviour modification. Later, it was found out that these doctors were CIA contractors. After this, his health slowly deteriorated and stayed away from public life, eventually dying in seclusion with his sister in West Philadelphia, 1976.
To conclude, Robeson was a great man who spoke out against racism, oppression and colonialism all over the world. Due to this, the US government and the revisionist USSR, tried to write him out of history. I greatly recommend listening to the HUAC committee meeting – I am unsure if it is a re-enactment or not – as it shows the obvious racist and anti-communist views the US government had at the time.
Video above: an extent from Paul Robeson’s English translation of the USSR national anthem (1944).
Sources:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/biographies/1953/04/x01.htm
https://www.biography.com/.amp/people/paul-robeson-9460451
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Paul_Robeson.html?id=CXQIAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y
https://www.counterpunch.org/1999/04/01/did-the-cia-poison-paul-robeson/
Black On Red: My 44 Years Inside The Soviet Union, by: Robert Robinson.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/intothemusic/paul-robeson/4691690
Voices Of The Revolution 