Talk:Paul Robeson

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 It can be temporarily surrendered by a person on bail for a criminal offence, but not permanently withdrawn.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.

Contents

1 Whitewash 2 Untruths and POV statements by TDC 3 Smith Act Source 4 page protected 5 Smith Act Source 6 Recent Allegations of Plagarism 7 Polyglot?

Whitewash

This worshipful article glosses over Robeson's Communism and does a disservice to the truth.

What is particularly outrageous is the notion that he sympathized with the people of the Soviet Union. If he really had, he would not have been a supporter of the Soviet system, a totalitarian nightmare that murdered tens of millions of innocent Russians and others and condemned the rest to a lifetime of terror and poverty.

Even many self-styled Marxists find Stalin repulsive. Not Robeson, who spoke up strongly for Stalin and even received the Stalin Prize. Why is that particular award not mentioned in the article?

If some right-wing singer had gotten a Hitler Prize I rather doubt that would have been carefully unmentioned in a wiki piece.

Here are some choice quotes from the doctrinaire, unrepentant Stalinist Robeson:

"They have sung -- sing now and will sing his praise -- in song and story. Slava -- slava -- Stalin, Glory to Stalin. Forever will his name be honored and beloved in all lands. In all spheres of modern life the influence of Stalin reaches wide and deep. From his last simply written but vastly discerning and comprehensive document, back through the years, his contributions to the science of our world society remains invaluable. One reverently speaks of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin -- the shapers of humanity's richest present and future...."

- "To You Beloved Comrade," New World Review, Vol. 21, No. 4, 4/53, pp. 11-13.

"I am truly happy that I am able to travel from time to time to the USSR -- the country I love above all. I always have been, I am now and will always be a loyal friend of the Soviet Union."

-"’I Love Above All, Russia,’ Robeson Says," Afro-American, June 25, 1949, p.7.

"Of course, it [the 1956 Hungarian uprising] was not a true uprising of the people. It was inspired by America and other agents. The 'Voice of America' really started it."

- "America to Blame for Hungary: Paul Robeson's' Line Undeviating - Closely Questioned by Anzac Reporters," Variety, 10/16/60, p. 2.

I am already on it, unless someone removes my contributions again TDCTDC 14:36, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is collaborative. Be bold -- if you think something's been left out, put it in.

Of course, it's then subject to editing and NPOVing (or, depending on one's perspective, further NPOVing). --Charles A. L. 14:42, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

If some right-wing singer had gotten a Hitler Prize I rather doubt that would have been carefully unmentioned in a wiki piece.

Very true. They're not singers, but you'll note that the entries for Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh mention their respective Nazi decorations (and rightfully so). Thank you for adding the Stalin Peace Prize bit. --Chowbok 18:43, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Untruths and POV statements by TDC

I dispute the statement that the Communist Party "was known to be actively involved in espionage against the United States".

I dispute the statement that the Communist Party and/or Paul Robeson "enthusiastically supported the 1940 Smith Act".

Where did you get your "information" on Feffer? --Jose Ramos 09:27, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

where did I get my informaton from:

The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin

Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin, John Barron

In Denial: Historians, Communism, & Espionage, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr

The Secret World of American Communism (Annals of Communism Series) by Harvey Klehr

Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee by Joshua Rubenstein

Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr

It is also important to point out that unlike some screeds, the material in these books are backed up by literaly thousands of documents from the KGB, former Soviet and Eastern European nations as well as itmes obtained through FOIA inquiries at the CIA. TDC 14:28, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The CPUSA offcialy supported the 1940 Smith Act, until it was used on them. TDC 14:36, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Your allegation does not make it true. --Jose Ramos 03:49, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

My allegations do not make it true? And what do I have to do to prove it to you, give you the page number where they quote from?

On Robeson and the Smith Act: Paul Robeson: A Flawed Martyr, Barry Fing[from New Politics, vol. 7, no. 1 (new series), whole no. 25, Summer 1998]

I read with interest the article you cited by Mr. Finger [not Fing]. It is easily found on the Internet. It turns out that the article is a political diatribe which offers no evidence for its broad allegations of evil-doing by Communists and by Paul Robeson. These allegations are made by one with an obvious political axe to grind.

Not only do your allegations not go beyond allegations, so Finger's allegations do not go beyond allegations.

You have used someone with a clear and powerful bias to introduce undocumented, pointedly POV statements into this article. You should be ashamed. --Jose Ramos 09:04, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

TDC, you have stopped discussing, and are just stubbornly reverting.

I maintain that you cannot substantiate your Smith Act allegations by simply quoting a journal of political opinion, that itself does not document its allegations. --Jose Ramos 05:28, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

--

I'm leaving the following line alone, recognizing TDC's effort to rewrite it to be more neutral, but its still not up to par. It needs some description to explain how he supposedly betrayed the friend, and it needs somebody besides Wikipedia saying it was a betrayal.

Robeson's betrayal of friend and poet Itzik Feffer is one of the  sharpest 
 examples of the lengths he would go to to defend Stalin's Soviet Union. 

Overall, the criticisms of Robeson as a communist are relevant, but they do need to be sufficiently attributed so that that we understand the political motivations of his accusers.

In the paragraph that starts "As a member of the CPUSA,..." we need something by way of introduction to clarify that his position conflicted with the agenda of the Party. The paragraph explains it, but the context makes it hard to figure out what side he is on, so an introduction such as ... "Though he was a member of the CPUSA, he sometimes took issue with their agenda."

Some others - his "status" as a victim would more accurately be stated his "portrayal" as a victim.

"On his frequent trips...." just runs on and on with too many ands and then there are more ands connecting about five sentences and it is too long and it is hard to read and it needs to be broken into shorter sentences.

I could make these changes, but its better I let you writers already working on this nurse your own baby. DontMessWithThis 15:33, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As a member of the CPUSA, Robeson enthusiastically supported the 1940 Smith Act which made it an offence under which members of organizations that advocated the violent overthrow of the government could be prosecuted. The Party saw the Act as a means of using WWII as an excuse to legally persecute Trotskyists. While addressing a convention of the Civil Rights Conference Robeson rejected an appeal by a Trotskyist who feared he would lose his government pension, saying that “Trotskyists are no better than fascists and Klansmen ....... and not deserving of any rights”.

This paragraph is the subject of an edit war. Personally, I don't know one way or the other what the truth is, but it would be nice if someone sourced this info since it is so obviously contentious. The latest revert offered The Secret World of American Communism as the source, but I looked at this book via www.netlibrary.com. It doesn't mention Robeson in the index or glossary and a full text search doesn't turn up his name either. Additionally, the Smith Act only appears briefly on 4 pages scattered through the book. Gamaliel 23:02, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't know about Robeson but it is a historical fact that the CPUSA applauded the use of the Smith Act against Trotskyists. Not only was this completely unprincipled class betrayal, it was myopic as it made it much easier for the US to use the Act against the CPUSA when the time came.

In 1948 Hall and 11 other CP leaders were tried under the notorious Smith Act, which made “conspiracy” to advocate the overthrow of the government by “force and violence” a felony. Convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, Hall jumped bail in 1951, while the verdict was being appealed. Apprehended within a few months, his jail term was lengthened to eight years, which he served at the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. [1] (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/hall-n06_prn.shtml)

Despite the obvious strengths of the Communist movement, there were numerous handicaps. The frequent zigzagging in political line, with equal ferocity brought to instantly changing positions, had sapped its intellectual credibility. The near-fanatical attachment to wartime national unity seemed all too characteristic of past adaptations Across a wide spectrum of efforts, the Party paid a heavy price, as Popular Front organizations (e.g., the Congress of Spanish Speaking Peoples) that had been created under difficult conditions were now suddenly abandoned or dissolved. In like manner, Communist insistence upon the no-strike pledge in war industries and other curbs on militancy, while not universally applied, nevertheless created hostility among some of the most militant industrial workers. Support of the Smith Act usage against Trotskyists and support of the confinement of Japanese Americans raised serious doubts about Communist commitments to civil liberties.Encylopedia of the American Left (http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/encyclopedia-american-left.htm)

Interestingly, the original Smith Act trials had the full support of the CPUSA, because it was first applied to a group of Trotskyists opposed to the U.S. role in World War II. Blacklisting Hollyood's Communists (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/blist2.htm)

AndyL 00:47, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Smith Act Source

As a member of the CPUSA, Robeson enthusiastically supported the 1940 Smith Act which made it an offence under which members of organizations that advocated the violent overthrow of the government could be prosecuted. While addressing a convention of the Civil Rights Conference Robeson rejected an appeal by a Trotskyist who feared he would lose his government pension, saying that Trotskyists were no better than fascists and Klansmen and not deserving of any rights”.

"The Case of the Legless Veteran," Dissent, Winter 1986 Harvey Klehr

Hi, Thanks for providing your source. However, I could only find a book called "The Case of the Legless Veteran" from Pathfinder Press, a Trotskyist Publishing company, by an author called James Kutcher. Could you provide more details about the source you are citing? --Mista-X 17:03, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I assume he is referring to the journal Dissent, which is online but only has web archives back to the 1990s. You can find back issues at a decent university archive, though I suspect the article says something very different than what the paragraph does, if it mentions Robeson or the Smith Act at all. Gamaliel 17:05, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well then go to a "decent university" and look it up little man. Thankfully my public library has a quite complete archive on CD-ROM. TDC 17:07, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Gamaliel 17:09, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please see quit complaining about my edits because you dont have acess to my sources. TDC 17:12, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I do, and I will be checking your citation at my earliest opportunity. Gamaliel 17:16, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have e-mailed Professor Klehr to see if he is willing to clarify the paragraph, and will post if and when he responds. --Mista-X 17:17, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

---

The Encyclopedia of the American Left (http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/encyclopedia-american-left.htm) written by Paul Buhle and Dan Georgakas does mention Smith Act support from CPUSA:

"Support of the Smith Act usage against Trotskyists and support of the confinement of Japanese Americans raised serious doubts about Communist commitments to civil liberties."

The CPUSA FAQ (http://www.cpusa.org/article/static/511/) only talks about how they were persecuted under the act.

From Answer.com (http://www.answers.com/topic/communist-party-usa):

"Throughout the rest of World War II, the CPUSA went from pursuing a policy of militant, if sometimes bureaucratic trade unionism to opposing strike actions at all costs. The leadership of the CPUSA was among the most patriotic elements during these years, advocating social peace, supporting the prosecution of leaders of the Socialist Workers Party under the newly enacted Smith Act, and opposing A. Philip Randolph's efforts to organize a March on Washington to dramatize black workers' demands for equal treatment on the job."

I persynally don't doubt that the CPUSA support the Smith Act's use against it's enemies, but I am not sure they lent it support in totality. For example, I like seeing the Security Certificate being used against Neo-Nazis such as Ernst Zundel, but don't support the security certificate in principle. I would like to see what CPUSA's official position on the Smith Act was and what they have to say about it now.

However, I have a hard time believing that Robeson actually said "Trotskyists were no better than fascists and Klansmen and not deserving of any rights". I would like to know who witnessed and heard this, and the date of this conference he supposedly attended. Mista-X 18:06, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be true that CPUSA supported the Smith Act against Trotskyists and asked Japanese Americans to comply with the Government.

I got the following information from a leftist source:

see, "Highlights of a Fighting History, " from Int'l. Publishers,

published in the 80's, if memory serves, for CPUSA docs and articles

from Political Affairs.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Smith+Act+trotskyists+cpusa

> ...The Smith Act was passed in 1940. When the Trotskyists of the

Socialist Workers Party became the first Smith Act defendants in 1941,

Hall and the rest of the Stalinists applauded their prosecution and

conviction. When the same law was turned against the Stalinists, the

American Trotskyists took a principled position. Without minimizing

its fundamental and unbridgeable political differences with the

Stalinists, the Socialist Workers Party denounced the persecution of

the CP as an attack on the democratic rights of the working class, and

defended the CP leaders.

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/1999m04/msg01223.htm

American Communism and Anticommunism:

A Historian's Bibliography and Guide to the Literature

http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page94.html#az2

http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue25/finger25.htm

> ...When the Smith Act, the predecessor of McCarthyism, was enacted by

Congress and signed by Roosevelt, its first victims were leading

members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and of Minneapolis

Teamsters local 544, eighteen of whom were convicted. This was in

1941, when Russia and America were wartime allies. Convinced that the

18 were convicted for their views and not for any illegal acts, the

labor and liberal movements rallied to their cause in large numbers,

again without regard for their political differences with Trotskyism.

The Communists also rallied in unions and arenas where they could gain

a hearing throughout the country. What made their intervention so

singularly notorious however is that they rallied tirelessly to

isolate and discredit the supporters of the indicted socialist

unionists, regretting only that the sentences were not harsher.

When a few years later it was the Stalinists who were persecuted by

the same provisions of the Smith Act, a Conference to Defend the Bill

of Rights was hastily convened in July of 1949, largely under

Stalinist initiative, to solidify a defense movement. In preparation,

the Daily Worker printed an editorial warning in advance that the

Communist Party would not allow the forum to defend the civil

liberties of "Trotskyites." Those with scruples, like I. F. Stone and

Professor Thomas I. Emerson, were put on notice that such support

would be considered disruptive. Nevertheless, endorsement of the

Minneapolis defendants and the related case of the veteran, James

Kutcher, who had lost both legs in the very "peoples' war" which the

Communists invoked with such religious fervor, was not short in coming

having been proposed by none less than the chair of the conference,

Paul J. Kern. Kutcher had lost first his limbs and then, due to his

membership in the "subversive" Socialist Workers Party, lost his

clerical position in the Veterans' Administration, his disability

pension and finally his public housing. Paul Robeson, a leading World

War II sentimentalist, (after Hitler unilaterally and violently

destroyed his Pact with Stalin) then took to the platform and in a

sordid display of Stalinist solidarity denounced adherents of the

Socialist Workers Party as "allies of fascism who want to destroy the

new democracies of the world. Let us not be confused. They are the

enemies of the working class. Would you give civil rights to the Ku

Klux Klan?" Kern's resolution was defeated.

I also recieved the following e-mail from CPUSA:

It is true that we did not oppose the Smith Act when originally

passed, seeing it as a wartime measure (mainly aimed at Trotskyites). That

mistake hurt us directly when the Smith Act was used to arrest the entire

national leadership of our Party, and many subsequent arrests of

second-level and state leaders. We fought those and other arrests and

prosecutions for many years until most or all provisions were declared

unconstitutional by State Supreme Courts or the US Supreme Court.

The internment of the Japanese was not based on the Smith Act but on an

Executive Order of Franklin Roosevelt. We did not oppose the internment

order and urged Japanese members to comply. This was later condemned by

several resolutions at several of our National Conventions, which stated

that we should have waged a campaign against the racist and unconstitutional

nature of the order. We apologized for not doing so.

Don't know what wikipedia is, and I am not the most authoritative source on

these issues. A large library may have our newspaper, the Daily World, the

Worker, or the Daily Worker on microfilm and you could find real source

material. The Daily Worker was published during the war, the Worker in the

late 1950s and early 1960s, and the Daily World in the 1960s to 1980s. Our

Conventions which condemned our position on Japanese internment happened

during the late 1960s and 1970s (if my memory is correct, the years were

1968, 1975, 1979).

Another source is the autobiography "Ganbatte" by Karl Yoneda, (University

of California Press) a Japanese American Communist who lived through that

period, went to a camp, and later fought to have the Party reverse its

position. It is a fascinating book in many regards (he was active in

attempts to organize farmworkers in the 1920s and later became a longshore

union activist) and is paired with the biography of his wife, Elaine Yoneda,

"The Red Angel" by Vivian Raineri (International Publishers), a European

American who went with him, and who had a long history going back to the

1920s of fighting for civil rights. If my memory serves, "Ganbatte" has the

actual text of the Convention resolution as an appendix.

Marc Brodine

I think it is fair to say now that CPUSA undoubtably supported the Smith Act, and Paul Robeson supported the CPUSA. But I still question the sentence "Trotskyists were no better than fascists and Klansmen and not deserving of any rights". Still awaiting Professor Klehr's response. --Mista-X 19:03, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about Robeson but it is a historical fact that the CPUSA applauded the use of the Smith Act against Trotskyists. Not only was this completely unprincipled class betrayal and collaboration with the capitalist state, it was myopic as it made it much easier for the US to use the Act against the CPUSA when the time came.

In 1948 Hall and 11 other CP leaders were tried under the notorious Smith Act, which made “conspiracy” to advocate the overthrow of the government by “force and violence” a felony. Convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, Hall jumped bail in 1951, while the verdict was being appealed. Apprehended within a few months, his jail term was lengthened to eight years, which he served at the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. [2] (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/hall-n06_prn.shtml)

Despite the obvious strengths of the Communist movement, there were numerous handicaps. The frequent zigzagging in political line, with equal ferocity brought to instantly changing positions, had sapped its intellectual credibility. The near-fanatical attachment to wartime national unity seemed all too characteristic of past adaptations Across a wide spectrum of efforts, the Party paid a heavy price, as Popular Front organizations (e.g., the Congress of Spanish Speaking Peoples) that had been created under difficult conditions were now suddenly abandoned or dissolved. In like manner, Communist insistence upon the no-strike pledge in war industries and other curbs on militancy, while not universally applied, nevertheless created hostility among some of the most militant industrial workers. Support of the Smith Act usage against Trotskyists and support of the confinement of Japanese Americans raised serious doubts about Communist commitments to civil liberties.Encylopedia of the American Left (http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/encyclopedia-american-left.htm)

Interestingly, the original Smith Act trials had the full support of the CPUSA, because it was first applied to a group of Trotskyists opposed to the U.S. role in World War II. Blacklisting Hollyood's Communists (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/blist2.htm)

"I persynally don't doubt that the CPUSA support the Smith Act's use against it's enemies, but I am not sure they lent it support in totality. For example, I like seeing the Security Certificate being used against Neo-Nazis such as Ernst Zundel, but don't support the security certificate in principle. I would like to see what CPUSA's official position on the Smith Act was and what they have to say about it now."

Sorry Mista-X but you're comparing Zundel to Trotskyists which is completely unfair. It's one thing to not oppose the use of the Smith Act against fascists, it's another to support its use against elements of the workers movement. What the CPUSA did was class betrayal, pure and simple. AndyL 00:52, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

AndyL I agree with you on this, to a certain extent. I think that those times were much different though, and "Trotskyists" and "Stalinists" were much more hostile to each other then. Also, I was not meaning to draw a comparison on an bases of politics. I was simply trying to look at it from CPUSA's point of view. Perhaps it seemed like the smart, i.e. Machiavellian, thing to do at the time. They seem to now admit that it was a stupid thing to do at the time, but still don't regret doing it to Trotskyites. One has to wonder though, what the Trotskyites were doing to the movement. I find it hard and one sided to just paint an evil picture of the "Stalinists" in all this. --Mista-X 03:05, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What were the Trotskyists doing? They were organizing workers and encouraging workers demands against war profiteers. See this article on the Proletarian Military Policy (http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/backiss/Vol1/No3/LevyPMP.html) for information on Trotskyist attitudes in WWII and their demands such as the right of soldiers to elect their officers and discuss the war freely. See also the article on the Smith Act.

But here's a short synopsis of what was going on:

On June 27—five days after Hitler invaded the USSR—FBI agents raided the offices of the SWP in Minneapolis and the twin-city of St. Paul, carting off large quantities of (perfectly legal) socialist literature.

On July 15, a Federal grand jury indicted 29 union and SWP members. There were two counts to the indictment. The first, based on the 1861 Sedition Act, a Civil War measure aimed against the Southern slaveholders and their agents—and never before used!—charged that the defendants conspired “to overthrow, put down and to destroy by force the Government of the United States of America, and to oppose by force the authority thereof ... The defendants would seek to bring about, whenever the time seemed propitious, an armed revolution ...”

The second count, based on the 1940 Smith Act, a reactionary and controversial law which criminalised the mere espousal of ideas, charged the defendants with advocating the overthrow of the government by force and violence and urging insubordination in the armed forces.

The trial began in the Federal District Court in Minneapolis on October 27, 1941. The state side was unable to produce any proof of conspiracy, its “evidence” consisting mainly of public statements by the party and its leaders.[3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/#intro)

As for Machiavellian, yes, the CPUSA was but you shouldn't assume being Machiavellian is a good thing, more often than not Machiavellianism is equivalent to opportunism. AndyL 16:01, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

page protected

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)

Trying an unprotect to see how it goes. But please behave. Shanes 02:46, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I just noticed that you protected Gamaliel's version of the article, how nice of you. It truly is good to see fair and impartial admins on Wikipedia, you know? But dont fret, someone is going to get burned.TDC 01:11, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Smith Act Source

Well, I have done it, an easily accesable source for the Smith quote, that I think everone can agree is gen-u-ine good.

• A similar ideological-emotional construction is apparent in the position Robeson took on the civil liberties of the Trotskyst Social Workers Party. At a Bill of Rights Conference in New York City in late July of 1949m a resolution was introduced calling for freedom for eighteen Trotskites convicted in 1941 under the same provisions of the Smith Act currently being used against the leaders of the CPUSA. The chairman of the conference, Paul J. Kern, argued forcefully before the convention that free speech should never be denied because of a difference in political opinion-a view seconded by Professor Thomas Emerson of the Yale Law School. An impassioned Robeson took the platform to denounce the Kern-Emerson position. Like most pro-Soviets, Robeson had long blamed the followers of Trotsky for spreading exaggerated “slander” about Stalin’s “police sate”. Adherents of the Socialist Workers Party, Robeson claimed, “are the allies of Fascism who want to destroy the new democracies of the world. Let’s not get confused, They are the enemies of the working class. Would you give civil rights to the Ku Klux Klan?” NO, the delegates roared back. They defeated the resolution and passed a substitute that simply called for the defense of “all anti-fascist victims” of the Smith Act. It was not Robeson’s finest hour.

Paul Robeson: A Biography by Martin Duberman page 382 footnote 3, page 699 The New York Times, July 19th 1949, National Gaurdian July 25th 1949

Not his finest hour indeed, or yours Viajero, or yours Gamaliel. Indeed .... indeed!

I might also go onto mention that one of the 12 SWP members was James Kutcher, a SWP member who had lost both his legs at Anzio in 1944.

"The Case of the Legless Veteran," Dissent, Winter 1986 Harvey Klehr, does touch on this, but this is so much better a source.

Time to unprotect this and gimme my props!TDC 01:11, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

And by the way, just so long as there are no misunderstandings, I plan on copying the pages, converting them to .gif's and uploading them to Wikipedia in the morning, so you all can bask in my warm gentleness. Unless someone objects? TDC 01:15, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations. Assuming this latest source is correct, it only took you about six or seven different sources and fourteen months to get it right. Good show!

I don't expect you to understand this, but it was never about whether or not the information was correct. You were asked for sources for your information and you did not provide accurate citations. If you had been honest, accurate, and civil from the beginning, a whole lot of hassle could have been avoided. Gamaliel 06:56, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Have you not read anything on the discussion page? It's all about whether certain pieces of information on the noble and heroic HUAC "victim" Paul Robeson will be allowed to see the light of day or not. TDC 14:09, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

I see a discussion page filled with requests for you to provide a citation, and you providing a series of vague and inaccurate ones. I can't speak for others, of course, but I never would have become invovled in the Smith Act dispute at all had you been accurate from the beginning. Gamaliel 19:01, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I intially removed the lengthy quoted text for placement here. I hadn't noticed that the text was already up for discussion, so I restored it to the main entry. However. Since the entire paragraph appears to be a quote it should be indicated as such in the article, or condensed with a reference to this Talk topic. There has been discussion on other pages as to whether block quotes constitute plagiarism. I appreciate Gamaliel's tenacity against obstructionist nonsourcing.

Duberman's bio makes it clear that Robeson was under a great deal of pressure to renounce his association with the CPUSA at the time the statement was made. Robeson's anti-Trotskyist rant reflects the CPUSA's line on the Trotskyists as counter-revolutionary. He failed to trancend the viewpoint of the party, but its hardly a shock that Robeson disliked Trotskyists. Nor does this hypocritical incident somehow validate the post WWII anti-left witchhunt. Now we have another source for improved context and further rewrites. DJ Silverfish 20:40, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

A witch hunt describes the search a mythical figure, a search that is impossible to complete, because no matter how long one searches for the "witch", it is all in vain. The HUAC hearings and other related incidents were not witch hunts, because a large number of those brought before it were indeed either KGB agents, like Owen Lattimore or slavishly willing Soviet symps like Robeson. It is very much relevant that Robeson would rail against the suppression of his Civil rights by the HUAC, when he, according to Duberman's bio, played no small part in ensuring that the Civil Rights of those whose political beliefs he found objectionable were also squashed. And you are right, its not shocking that Robeson disliked Trotsky, after all, as a devout Stalinist, Robeson spent a good deal of his life rhetorically felating his primary opponent.

But the book is a good source as unlike most bios written by sympathetic authors, pulls no punches.TDC 21:43, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

I no longer have an objection to the inclusion of this material now that finally a proper and accurate source has been found. I do, however, object to plagiarism and I've removed this paragraph as it's almost entirely a word for word copy from a paragraph from Duberman's book. If you wish to include this material, please summarize the incident in your own words. Gamaliel 19:26, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Recent Allegations of Plagarism

A few things for Gamaliel. How exactly does this constitute plagiarism? It is sourced and not word for word, and if this does constitute plagiarism would you also be so vigilant in bringing this up in the Winter Soldier Investigation and Vietnam Veterans Against the War articles [4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TDC/VVAW_Winter_soldier)?

Please, by all means call my bluff. TDC 22:19, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

If there is plagiarism in those articles, I suggest you remove it. The presence of plagiarism in other articles does not give you a free pass to commit it here. Your "new" paragraph is merely a change of perhaps a dozen words from the original, not to mention you have preserved the precise order and presentation of facts from the original. I have failed student papers for plagiarizing less than that. Gamaliel 22:44, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, then I am glad I am not a student of yours, aside from failing me, I doubt I would want to listen to you drone on and on about my politics. But, that is a matter for the classroom. Also, if you cared to investigate the articles mentioned, the history, and the talk pages, you would see that every attempt to do was reverted.

So I ask you, again, second time here, if this is plagiarism, then will you support my efforts to remove it from the two above mentioned articles? Or does your "attention to detail" end with users you dislike? TDC 22:53, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Considering I did not teach politics or history, such a scenario would not occur except in your stereotypical imaginings of liberal teachers out to snatch the political innocence of children. In any case, I support the efforts to remove plagiarized material from any article on Wikipedia inserted by any editor. This should go without saying, of course, but you apparently insist on viewing the application of standard Wikipedia policy through the prism of persecution. Gamaliel 23:00, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Politics pop up in every subject, so please don’t be coy about it.

So your answer to my question is yes, your "attention to detail" end with users you dislike?

Thank you for the clarification. TDC 23:04, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

TDC, Gamaliel has said, "if there is plagiarism in those articles, I suggest you remove it," and "I support the efforts to remove plagiarized material from any article on Wikipedia inserted by any editor. " - I believe that this means "go ahead and fix it yerself", not, "yes, you're right".

Unless, of course, instead of fixing it, the real reason you bring it up is so as to wave it around as an example of your martyrdom. You sound kind of like an 8-year-old whining because mommy punishes him for doing the same thing his brother got away with. --Rroser167 20:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I have tried to "fix it" before to no avail. Had you read the history and talk pages of the articles you would have known that, instead of sticking your nose in and looking ignorant like you have. Secondly, like I said before, for all of Gamaliel's complaining about how I am POV pushing on Wikipedia, he seems only interested in protecting its integrity to a certain point. Toodles. TDC 00:42, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

And what point would that be? Don't be coy. How do you get from "I support the efforts to remove plagiarized material from any article on Wikipedia inserted by any editor" to "he seems only interested in protecting its integrity to a certain point"? Because I don't immediately rush to deal with some vague, non-specific accusations regarding two random articles I haven't even read? If there's a problem with those articles, why can't you deal with it? I have no interest in jumping through hoops to prove anything to you. Gamaliel 01:06, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

TDC, you were better off not making me read the discussion pages - before I read them, I thought that you had an iron-clad case - now I realize from reading all the bitch-slapping you got over there that you're just crying like the infant you are. --Rroser167 02:03, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Polyglot?

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)