Changes

Robeson performed "Ballad" on the [[CBS]] radio network in 1943, accompanied by chorus and orchestra. [[Bing Crosby]] would also record a commercially successful recording of the piece but the song is almost always associated with Robeson as it represents the pinnacle of his music and radio career prior to the [[Cold War]]<ref name=Duberman241>Duberman, Martin. ''Paul Robeson'', 1989, pg 241. </ref>He would perform it at [[The Hollywood Bowl]] to the largest sold-out crowd in its history.<ref name=Duberman241 />

Robeson performed "Ballad" on the [[CBS]] radio network in 1943, accompanied by chorus and orchestra. [[Bing Crosby]] would also record a commercially successful recording of the piece but the song is almost always associated with Robeson as it represents the pinnacle of his music and radio career prior to the [[Cold War]]<ref name=Duberman241>Duberman, Martin. ''Paul Robeson'', 1989, pg 241. </ref>He would perform it at [[The Hollywood Bowl]] to the largest sold-out crowd in its history.<ref name=Duberman241 />

===Communist Party membership ===

==Rumors of Communist party membership==

Robeson's political statements and activism, including sympathies expressed towards the Soviet Union, [[Lenin]], [[Mao Zedong]], [[Josip Broz Tito]] and [[Joseph Stalin]] were the subject of great controversy in the mass media, in particular rumors of membership in the [[Communist Party USA|American Communist Party]].  

In 1946, Robeson was questioned by the Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California, informally known as the Tenney Committee. When he was asked whether he was a member of the Communist Party, Robeson replied that he might as well have been asked whether he was a registered Democrat or Republican—in the United States the Communist Party was equally legal. But, he added under oath, he was not a Communist.<ref name=Duberman241>Duberman, Martin. ''Paul Robeson'', 1989, pg 307. </ref><ref>Duberman, pp. 307&ndash;308</ref> There is no clear evidence that Robeson ever was a member of the Communist Party. According to records released under the [[Freedom of Information]] Act, the FBI believed that Robeson might have joined the Party under the name "John Thomas" but "his Communist Party membership book number is not known." Robeson's biographer, Martin Duberman, concludes that "he was never a member of CPUSA, never a functionary, never a participant in its daily bureaucratic operations."<ref name=dubermanpages/> Paul Robeson, Jr. has also stated on numerous times that his father was never a member of the CPUSA. Had Robeson actually been a Communist party member he would have been jailed under The Smith Act, as the surveillance on his life was virtullay nonstop during most of his adult life.

 

Robeson is often criticized for accepting the [[Stalin Peace Prize]], eulogizing Stalin, and continuing to support the Soviet Union and not formally denouncing the regime, despite conflicting accounts that show his awareness of state-sponsored intimidation and murder.<ref name=Duberman354>Duberman, Martin. ''Paul Robeson'', 1989, pgs 354''</ref> In his testimony to HUAC, he stated that,

 

"I have told you, mister, that I would not discuss anything with the people who have murdered sixty million of my people, and I will not discuss Stalin with you."  And "I will discuss Stalin when I may be among the Russian people some day, singing for them, I will discuss it there. It is their problem." Asked if he had praised Stalin during his previous trip to the Soviet Union, Robeson replied, "I do not know." When asked outright if he had changed his mind about Stalin he implored,

 

"Whatever has happened to Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union, and I would not argue with a representative of the people who, in building America, wasted sixty to a hundred million lives of my people, black people drawn from Africa on the plantations. You are responsible, and your forebears, for sixty million to one hundred million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations, and don’t ask me about anybody, please."<ref>http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6440/''"You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves": Paul Robeson Appears Before HUAC''retrieved March 2nd 2009"</ref>

 

When Robeson was given the news of Stalin's 1939 non aggression pact with Hitler, also known as the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]], he saw the agreement as having been forced on Russia by the unwillingness of the French and British forces "to collaborate with the Soviet Union in a real policy of collective security"-personally writing in his journal that an Anglo-Russian pact "would have stopped Nazi aggression"-thus leaving the USSR with no alternative choices in shoring up its borders.<ref name=Duberman232>Duberman, Martin. ''Paul Robeson'', 1989, pg 232.</ref>

According to records released under the [[Freedom of Information Act]], the [[FBI]] believed that Robeson might have joined the Party under the name "John Thomas" but "his Communist Party membership book number is not known." Robeson's biographer, Martin Duberman, denies that "he was never a member of CPUSA, never a functionary, never a participant in its daily bureaucratic operations."<ref name=dubermanpages/> Paul Robeson, Jr. has also stated on numerous times that his father was never a member of the CPUSA.  But Robeson had been identified as a member of the CPUSA by Manning Johnson, a CPUSA member, in testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1949. Johnson revealed that:

According to records released under the [[Freedom of Information Act]], the [[FBI]] believed that Robeson might have joined the Party under the name "John Thomas" but "his Communist Party membership book number is not known." Robeson's biographer, Martin Duberman, denies that "he was never a member of CPUSA, never a functionary, never a participant in its daily bureaucratic operations."<ref name=dubermanpages/> Paul Robeson, Jr. has also stated on numerous times that his father was never a member of the CPUSA.  But Robeson had been identified as a member of the CPUSA by Manning Johnson, a CPUSA member, in testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1949. Johnson revealed that: