Political Views of Paul Robeson - Views On Stalin

Views On Stalin

Robeson is often criticized for continuing to support the Soviet Union after he became aware (according to his son Paul Robeson, Jr.) of state sponsored intimidation and murder of Jews. Robeson would state continually in speeches and essays that having experienced firsthand for himself during the 1930s a climate in Russia that he perceived as free from racial prejudice, he saw no western country or superpower actively attempt any comparable commitment. Robeson thus refused any pressure to publicly censure the Soviet experiment. He also stated that, the existence of the USSR was the guarantee of political balance in the world. During a 1949 address to the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, he said:

"Yes, all Africa remembers that it was Litvinov who stood alone beside Haile Selassie in Geneva, when Mussolini's sons flew with the blessings of the Pope to drop bombs on Ethiopian women and children. Africa remembers that it was the Soviet Union which fought the attempts of the Smuts to annex Southwest Africa to the slave reservation of the Union of South Africa... if the peoples of the Congo refuse to mine the uranium for the atom bombs made in Jim Crow factories in the United States; if all these peoples demand an end to floggings, an end to the farce of 'trusteeship' in the former Italian colonies.... The Soviet Union is the friend of the African and the West Indian peoples."