Robeson Bio Probes Internal Contradictions in Singer’s Defense of Soviet Union

‘The Last Tour: Paul and Eslanda Robeson’s Visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1960’By Ann CurthoysMelbourne University Press, 400 pagesThe son of a slave who escaped from a plantation, Paul Robeson (1898-1976), all-American football player, a graduate of Columbia Law School, the star of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones,” and a sensation on the London stage in the musical “Show Boat,” visited the Soviet Union in 1934 and declared, “Here for the first time in my life, I walk in full human dignity.” As Ann Curthoys remarks, “To his great detriment later on, he would never waver from his support of the Soviet Union.”During the Cold War in the 1950s the State Department withheld Robeson’s passport even as he found it impossible to perform as an actor or singer in concerts, in plays, or in movies. It was a kind of internal exile not so different from what dissenting artists in the Soviet Union suffered during the same period.After the Supreme Court decided the State Department had no right to withhold his passport, Robeson made what turned out to be his last tour — visiting Australia and New Zealand for the first time. In the main, the press and the public cheered him. He had made several films in England that had limited distribution in America but that were widely seen in the British Commonwealth. He was a hero to labor union activists for his well-known support of Welsh miners and his embrace of the rights of indigenous peoples all over the world.Robeson speaks and sings to the workers at the Sydney Opera House construction site on November 9, 1960. Via SEARCH Foundation/CPA Collection/Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.Robeson was truly an international star, singing in many languages and often without compensation to working class groups. On his last tour he exhausted himself singing and giving interviews, some of which provoked controversy. Questioned persistently about his pro-Soviet politics, he lost his temper with reporters. Asked about the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, he followed the preposterous Soviet line that it was a fascist plot against a democratic government. Ann Curthoys does not attempt to defend Robeson’s disingenuous statements. She refers to Robeson supporters who regretted what they called his naive support of the Soviet Union. She knows, however, that Robeson was no dupe. He knew first hand, for example, about Jewish friends who had been executed. He never divulged in public what he knew to be true in private.Robeson’s promotion of peace, while genuine and heartfelt, became part of a skewed criticism of his own country, which he said he loved as he did the Soviet Union, though he could never bring himself to condemn the latter’s crimes. That he was an inspiring figure profoundly versed in the languages and cultures of the world is apparent in Ms. Curthoys’s often moving accounts of his meetings with all kinds of people, including those who deplored his politics. Robeson’s magnificent voice, still nearly as powerful in his 60s as in his prime, transfixed audiences across Australia and New Zealand, immersed in the joy of his performances as he recited from William Blake and “Othello,” which he had performed many times, including at Stratford upon Avon. He also sang African American spirituals, the folk songs of many different nations, and material from classical works of music.Ms. Curthoys is especially informative about Robeson’s discussions of the ties between folk and classical music. He delighted in describing a universal language that inhered in the pentatonic scale, the simple five notes fundamental to all types of music.Flyer featuring Paul and Eslanda Robeson at an event sponsored by the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship and the NSW Peace Committee. Via Hannah Middleton Collection/Sydney Trades Hall ArchivesEslanda Robeson, often neglected in accounts of Robeson’s biography, receives considerable attention for her own accomplishments as a journalist and political activist. If she never fully emerges in her own right, that is certainly not Ms. Curthoys’s fault. Eslanda made a decision early on that, whatever else she might accomplish, first of all she had to be the pillar of her husband’s life and career. That meant forgiving his unfaithfulness and caring for a man prone to depression, exacerbated — I have to think — by the disconnect between his profound desire to help all of humanity and his subservience to a politics that undermined his credibility.Ms. Curthoys draws sensitively on her own experience as a child of communists, providing many insights into how sincerely her parents worked for world peace even as she briefly notes that her own politics have veered away from what might be deemed the Robeson generation.Mr. Rollyson deals with the problematic friendship of Paul Robeson and Rebecca West in “Rebecca West: A Modern Sibyl.”

Robeson Bio Probes Internal Contradictions in Singer’s Defense of Soviet Union

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