Changes

====Selective civil rights====

====Selective civil rights====

Robeson's [[Stalinism]] extended to denying civil rights to Trotskyites, whom [[Stalin]] had labeled "objectively fascist." In 1949, President [[Harry Truman|Truman]], seeking to distract attention from the [[Whittaker Chambers|Chambers]]-[[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]] revelations of widespread [[Communist]] penetration of the Federal government, arrested 11 leaders of the [[Communist Party]] under the [[Smith Act]]. [[Soviet]] agents such as Congressman [[Samuel Dickstein]] (D-N.Y.) (the Soviet agent code-named "Crook"), the architect of what would become [[HUAC]], had used the act in 1941 to convict 19 leaders of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Now that the [[CPUSA]] found itself attacked by the same law, some called for pardons for these SWP members. At an ironically-titled "Bill of Rights" Conference of the [[Civil Rights Congress]] (a [[Communist front]]),<ref>"...the Civil Rights Congress is an organization dedicated not to the broader issues of civil liberties, but specifically to the defense of individual Communists and the Communist Party... the organization is controlled by individuals who are either members of the Communist Party or openly loyal to it, and... in carrying out its defense aims, the organization has at the same time engaged in a campaign of vilification against the American Government." Union Calendar No. 575, House Report No. 1115, [http://ia341018.us.archive.org/0/items/reportoncivilrig1947unit/reportoncivilrig1947unit_bw.pdf Report on the Civil Rights Congress as a Communist Front Organization], Investigation of Un-American Activities in the United States, Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 80th Cong., 1st sess., Public Law 601 (Section 121, Subsection Q (2)), September 2, 1947 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), p. 19. The organization was subsequently cited as subversive and Communist by [[Harry Truman|Truman]]'s [[Attorney General]] [[Thomas Clark|Tom Clark]] on the [[Attorney General's list]] of subversive organizations, as mandated by Truman's [[Executive Order 9835]].</ref> Robeson led the call to deny the Trotskyites' rights:

Robeson's [[Stalinism]] extended to denying civil rights to Trotskyites, whom [[Stalin]] had labeled "agents of Fascism."<ref>J.V. Stalin, "[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1937/03/03.htm Defects in Party Work and Measures for Liquidating Trotskyite and Other Double Dealers: Report to the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RKP(b)]," March 3, 1937, Parts 1-3 of 5 (Moscow: Cooperative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, 1937)</ref> In 1949, President [[Harry Truman|Truman]], seeking to distract attention from the [[Whittaker Chambers|Chambers]]-[[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]] revelations of widespread [[Communist]] penetration of the Federal government, arrested 11 leaders of the [[Communist Party]] under the [[Smith Act]]. [[Soviet]] agents such as Congressman [[Samuel Dickstein]] (D-N.Y.) (the Soviet agent code-named "Crook"), the architect of what would become [[HUAC]], had used the act in 1941 to convict 19 leaders of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Now that the [[CPUSA]] found itself attacked by the same law, some called for pardons for these SWP members. At an ironically-titled "Bill of Rights" Conference of the [[Civil Rights Congress]] (a [[Communist front]]),<ref>"...the Civil Rights Congress is an organization dedicated not to the broader issues of civil liberties, but specifically to the defense of individual Communists and the Communist Party... the organization is controlled by individuals who are either members of the Communist Party or openly loyal to it, and... in carrying out its defense aims, the organization has at the same time engaged in a campaign of vilification against the American Government." Union Calendar No. 575, House Report No. 1115, [http://ia341018.us.archive.org/0/items/reportoncivilrig1947unit/reportoncivilrig1947unit_bw.pdf Report on the Civil Rights Congress as a Communist Front Organization], Investigation of Un-American Activities in the United States, Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 80th Cong., 1st sess., Public Law 601 (Section 121, Subsection Q (2)), September 2, 1947 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), p. 19. The organization was subsequently cited as subversive and Communist by [[Harry Truman|Truman]]'s [[Attorney General]] [[Thomas Clark|Tom Clark]] on the [[Attorney General's list]] of subversive organizations, as mandated by Truman's [[Executive Order 9835]].</ref> Robeson led the call to deny the Trotskyites' rights:

{{cquote|In speaking for denial of civil liberties to the Socialist Workers Party, Mr. Robeson asked the conference, "Would you give civil rights to the Ku Klux Klan?"

{{cquote|In speaking for denial of civil liberties to the Socialist Workers Party, Mr. Robeson asked the conference, "Would you give civil rights to the Ku Klux Klan?"

"No," chorused the delegates.

"No," chorused the delegates.