Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  CHAPTER 11

  The Spanish Civil War and Emergent Politics

  (1938–1939)

  “I want to go to Spain,” Paul announced early in December 1937. Essie, who thought of herself as the adventurous member of the family, afraid only of cats, demurred. “I am essentially a practical person,” she wrote, “and I thought: Paul is doing some very good work for Spain, here in England … singing at important meetings … speaking and writing quite frankly, and enthusiastically, about his great interest in the struggle.… Why need he go into the war area, into danger, perhaps risk his life, his voice?” She fought the idea but it soon became clear that Paul was determined to go whether she accompanied him or not. He tried to clarify for her the importance of the trip. “This is our fight, my fight,” he told her (in Essie’s paraphrase). She decided to accompany him.1

  Initially the U.S. Department of State denied them a visa, but, “after a lot of worrying and cabling,” it was issued. The Spanish Embassy sent them two “safe-conduct” orders, Paul spent the afternoon of January 21 recording songs from Porgy and Bess at Abbey Road, and that night they caught the ferry train for Paris, accompanied by Charlotte Haldane, wife of the left-wing scientist J. B. S. Haldane. The Robeson party arrived at the Spanish border on January 23. A government army lieutenant drove them across the frontier, where they were “greeted by everyone, with a smile of welcome, and ‘Salud!’, with the raised, clenched fist.” From there a militiaman took them in a car directly to Barcelona.2

  On arriving at the Majestic Hotel, they were met by the press. The Afro-Cuban writer Nicolás Guillén found Robeson “blockaded by a crowd of people hanging on his most insignificant gestures. Robeson pays attention to everyone, smiling. He poses repeatedly for photographers, answers the most diverse questions without tiring.… When he talks, he talks passionately, his enormous hands contracted and palms turned up, an invariable gesture of his when talking.… His solid personality projects great attractiveness, and his body moves with the elasticity of an athlete.” Asked by Guillén why he had come to Spain, Robeson replied, “It is dishonorable to put yourself on a plane above the masses, without marching at their side, participating in their anxieties and sorrows, since we artists owe everything to the masses, from our formation to our well-being; and it is not only as an artist that I love the cause of democracy in Spain, but also as a Black. I belong to an oppressed race, discriminated against, one that could not live if fascism triumphed in the world.” As militant and as Marxist as the Guillén interview makes Robeson sound, for contrast there is the Manchester Guardian account, which quotes Robeson as saying, in moderate terms far more reminiscent of his earlier formulations, “In the democracies the Negro has to struggle against prejudices, but not against an actual crushing law. He finds opportunity if he has the initiative to seek for it and the courage to fight for it.” Very likely Robeson did alternately sound a militant and a moderate note, accurately reflecting some lingering ambivalence which would very shortly solidify in the direction of militance.3

  After the interviews, the Robeson party was taken to see the effects of an air raid that had taken place that very morning—residential apartments, schools, and even hospitals bombed by Franco’s planes. It was a point in the war where Republican hopes were alive but fading. The Loyalist offensive against Teruel would culminate in success on January 8, 1938, but the Franco forces would retake the city on February 22, form a government, and by spring reach the border of Catalonia (on March 9, Hitler would occupy Austria). Faced with the “absolute savagery” of the bombings of Barcelona, Robeson told the press that he could not “understand how the democracies of Britain, France and America can stand by inactive.”4

  In that first evening, Robert Minor and his wife, Lydia Gibson, visited. Minor was a singular figure—a Communist from Texas, a talented cartoonist, he had been active in the early thirties in the League of Struggle for Negro Rights and would later be the Party’s Southern representative. Essie thought Minor “the warmest, most human, delightful man—Imagine a Texas man really understanding Negroes. But he did and could.” Minor told them that Earl Browder, the Communist Party/USA general secretary, might be in Barcelona when they got back at the end of their trip. They went to bed that night carefully arranging dressing gowns, slippers, and torches for a quick escape in case the warning sirens went off.5

  For their tour, a seven-passenger Buick was put at their disposal and an army captain, Fernando Castillo, was assigned to them as escort and guide, along with a driver. The Robesons warmed immediately to Castillo. He had studied in London, spoke English fluently, and, Essie wrote, had “a delightful sense of humor”—“our dignified military captain, and our dignified, serious Paul, became two, mischievous, small boys. There are stories, and jokes, to which Charlotte and I contribute occasionally. Paul sings softly, by the fire, and our captain hums with him.” On the long drive to Benicasim, Castillo told them that his father, a physician, had been an elected member of the assembly that had drawn up the Spanish Republican Constitution of 1931, and had been killed by the fascists in 1936. Five of his brothers were fighting at the front.6

  Benicasim, once a summer resort for wealthy Spaniards, was now the base hospital nearest the front line, and the roads to it were thronged with wounded and convalescent soldiers. Robeson sang at three different places in and around Benicasim, all within an hour. As their car came to a halt at one spot, he saw a young black soldier stare in disbelief at him. Robeson spoke to the soldier and found that he was a Spanish black from Harlem who had been fighting in Spain eleven months and had just been wounded at the battle of Teruel. They were soon surrounded by other volunteer soldiers, the International Brigadists, from Britain and the States. Two days later, at Albacete and Tarazona, they “were delighted to meet many of ‘the brothers’”—Andrew Mitchell from Oklahoma, Oliver Charles Rose from Baltimore, Frank Warfield from St. Louis, Ted Gibbs from Chicago, and Claude Pringle, a coal miner from Ohio. They “talked at length with them all, and gave them the latest news from America. The men were all keen, and aware, and sturdy spirited”—the Lincoln Brigade was the first U.S. unit ever integrated up to and including command positions.7

  The most celebrated of the black volunteers was Oliver Law, a thirty-three-year-old regular-army man from Chicago who had never been promoted above the rank of private but had risen to be commandant of the Lincoln Brigade and had died on the Brunete front. The more Robeson heard about the “quiet, dark brown, strongly built, dignified” Law and how he had kept up the morale of his men by personally undertaking any assignment he asked of them, the more Robeson determined to do a film that would center on Law, but also tell the story of “all of the American Negro comrades” (in Robeson’s words) “who have come to fight and die for Spain.” The project never got off the ground; “the same money interests that block every effort to help Spain,” Robeson wrote, “control the Motion Picture industry, and so refuse to allow such a story,” preferring to produce profitable films of “mediocre entertainment.”8

  Everywhere he went, Robeson was immediately recognized by the troops. They had read about him, seen his films, heard his songs. Astonished to see him in Spain, they crowded around him at several stops, and at each he sang without accompaniment, the soldiers calling out favorite songs. At the International Brigade training quarters in Tarazona, he was warmly welcomed by soldiers from a dozen countries—some fifteen hundred men packed the church, after passing in review and saluting the Robeson party, to hear him sing and Charlotte Haldane talk—so movingly, her own eyes full of tears, that the men stood up and cheered her at the close. Two of the British volunteers still remember the impact Robeson himself made. The soldiers “were thrilled to bits to see him,” George Baker recalls—that is, once they believed he was actually there. “You don’t get people like that every day of the week running into a war to see how things are going,” says Tommy Adlam, then a sergeant in the medical corps, recalling that at first most of the men discounted the rumor
that Robeson was in the vicinity. After it was established as fact, “the whole place lit up.” Robeson was so “alive and vivid,” he had an instantaneous effect—“it was just like a magnet drawing you … as if somebody was reaching out to grasp you and draw you in.” After he sang and talked with the men, they felt they had been with “a friend of lifelong standing.”9

  From Tarazona the party drove to Madrid, finishing the last part of the trip in darkness and at a crawl because that stretch of road was within range of the fascist artillery and was regularly bombed. Madrid itself had been shelled on a nearly daily basis since 1936, and no women and children were being allowed to enter the city; the Robesons got through only because they had special government papers. Driving directly to the Presidencia, they were received by the acting governor of Madrid, Dr. F. Grande-Covian, and went from there to luxurious accommodations in the Palace Hotel, “astonished” that such facilities were still available. They were only a few miles from the front line and could hear artillery fire clearly.10

  The next day, from the observation tower in the former royal palace, they could see the trenches, government troops on one side, the insurgents on the other. While they were still in the tower, a shell whizzed over and burst into a nearby building; another landed on a nearby bridge, destroying it. They took refuge in the staff room and were entertained on the guitar by a young lieutenant, as other soldiers joined in singing flamenco songs (Robeson told Nicolás Guillén, “the Flamencan song is Black in its rhythm and its sad depths”). Robeson, in turn, sang for the soldiers—the Mexican folk song “Encantadora Maria” and spirituals (“My songs,” he told the Daily Worker reporter in Spain, “came from the lips of the people of other continents who suffer and struggle to make equality a reality”). The soldiers seemed as absorbed in the singing as if there were no war at all. On the streets, too, the Robesons had been impressed with the remarkable capacity of the people to remain cheerful and to carry on, between shellings, with daily life. It was Essie’s impression that they harbored little bitterness against the adversary, were optimistic that Franco would be defeated and anxious not to sully their own cause by adopting the barbarous tactics of the enemy (the Robesons were elated when news came over the radio that the government had successfully bombed Saragossa—only to hear their Spanish friends disapprovingly comment that the government had resorted to “murderers’ weapons,” had mistakenly adopted Franco’s antilife values).11

  The Robeson party was welcomed everywhere in Madrid. They met the remarkable Communist leader Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria), the press came for interviews, Robeson broadcast to the nation, and Dr. Grande gave a party for them at which the great Pastora Imperio danced and Paul sang. At a performance of Cervantes’s Numancia, Paul was recognized in the audience; the cast then performed some special folk songs and dances in his honor—and he in turn sang from the stage while the audience stomped and shouted its approval. On January 29 the Robesons went to the barracks where soldiers from the front lines were resting, and then to the parade grounds, where he talked and sang to the men; the soldiers called out requests to him in various languages, and a motion-picture crew shot him “from every possible angle” with the troops; Robeson later dubbed in two songs as sound background for the film—choosing the militant “Joshua” and Rosamond Johnson’s “Singing wid a Sword in Ma Hand, Lord!”12

  From Madrid the Robeson party drove to Valencia, stopped all along the road by earnest young militiamen “armed to the teeth” who recognized the official car but nonetheless insisted on the precaution of checking their papers. A fierce air raid on Valencia had preceded them by only a few hours, and they saw the terrible devastation on all sides. After resting for the night, they moved on to Barcelona by way of the coast road; they were again fortunate in their timing, and arrived there just after two morning air raids. In Barcelona, Essie thought the reporters “depressing, rather like vultures. Not sympathetic at all … I doubt if they really care who wins or loses.” They saw Robert Minor again and had lunch with Earl Browder, who had just arrived from Toulouse. “Browder was a quiet middle-aged man, very sympathetic and interesting,” Essie wrote in her diary. “We had a good talk over lunch, and afterwards over coffee.…” The Commissioner of Information of Catalonia, Jaume Miravitlles, and the well-known folklorist and musician Joan Gols i Soler also paid visits; with both of them Robeson discussed the music of Catalonia, and Gols promised to send him a collection of songs.13

  After another overnight, they headed out of Spain to the French border, stopping at Figueras to pick up their driver’s brother. During the trip he told them that the Spanish people “lack all sense of color prejudice and are actually proud of whatever Moorish blood they have”—perhaps deliberately broadening his own Republican principles to cover a less than spotless historical record. Lieutenant Conrad Kaye, a popular New York volunteer, had earlier told them that they had had “quite a time at first with some of the southern white Americans and the British on this Negro question … the really difficult ones [having been] the British. They refuse to eat in dining rooms with the Negroes, etc., and have to be drastically educated, because neither the Spaniards nor the International Brigade will tolerate such heresy.” Essie, for one, “never felt any barrier because of Race or Color with the Spaniards.” As they drove toward the French border, mingling political talk with a song fest (the Robesons teaching the others the words to “I’se a Muggin’”), Captain Castillo unpinned the medal he had won for heroism in 1936 from his uniform and handed it to Essie with the simple words “I give you this.” At the border there were fond farewells and embraces. The Robesons got into a small sedan and crossed over into France; they arrived in Paris on the morning of February 1.14

  Robeson later called the 1938 trip to Spain “a major turning point in my life”—in the sense of intensifying his already well-developed political sympathies. “I have never met such courage in a people,” he told a reporter. He disliked the notion of turning to war to solve problems, but felt the Spanish people could not stand there and “be just murdered.” In his notebook Robeson wrote, “We must know that Spain is our Front Line.… We are certainly not doing anywhere nearly enough. We don’t feel deeply enough.… If we allow Republican Spain to suffer needlessly, we will ourselves eventually suffer as deeply.” He deplored the failure of the Western democracies to aid the Loyalist cause in Spain. In contrast, Robeson felt, Communists had proved themselves enthusiastic allies in the fight against Franco, and the Soviet Union’s support of the antifascist struggle confirmed for him—and for many others—that it stood in the forefront of the struggle for democratic liberties everywhere. On Essie, too, the trip to Spain had a profound effect. “Hitherto,” she wrote William Patterson, she had not been “fundamentally interested” in politics, but now felt she was rapidly “catching up” with Paul’s commitment. Less than a week after returning to London, Paul and Essie left for Paris so he could sing for the exiled delegates of the Cortez (the Spanish Parliament) on their way back to their respective countries. From Paris, Essie went on to Moscow to discuss with Ma Goode whether she and Pauli should return to London because of the worsening international situation, and Paul went back to London. They stayed in touch for many years with Captain Castillo, subsequently put him up with his family, and financed an exhibition of the paintings of his father-in-law, Don Cristobal Ruiz, in London (Freda Diamond took on the job of getting him an exhibition in New York), and then essentially supported the family until it could resettle in Mexico.15

  Disgusted and alarmed at political developments, Robeson felt he could not simply “stand by and see it happen.” He began to consider returning to the States, where he could speak out without being dismissed as an “alien.” In England, as a noncitizen, he had to try to remain “reasonably discreet,” but, as Essie wrote William Patterson, the “attitude and behaviour” of the “ruling classes” in England “has soured us, and we despise them openly.” Essie also conveyed to Patterson her approval of the recent purge t
rials in the Soviet Union. They had given her “a bad scare,” she wrote, because they brought back to mind the personal contact she had had with Ignaty N. Kazakov, the doctor who had just “confessed” to murdering OGPU Chairman Menzhinsky. Kazakov had asked Essie, when she and Paul left Kislovodsk after their 1937 vacation, to bring him “some compound of tungsten” for his laboratory when she returned to Moscow. She had managed to secure the tungsten from her London physician, but, being unable to learn what it could be used for—other than in light bulbs—she had decided to return the tungsten to her doctor; she did not want to “be responsible for importing anything I didn’t understand myself.” On returning to the Soviet Union, she had gone to explain to Kazakov—and found that he was in prison. “Can you imagine my being so dumb??” she wrote Patterson. “It develops that he used this marvelous clinic of his for poison, as well as for more constructive work.” She thought the treachery of the “conspirators” “a very terrible thing” and was “glad they have been punished.”16

  There is no record of Paul’s reaction to the 1936, 1937, or 1938 Moscow trials, but as early as 1936 he had given an interview to Ben Davis, Jr., in which he is quoted as saying that the U.S.S.R. had dealt properly in the trial of the “counter-revolutionary assassins” of Kirov—“They ought to destroy anybody who seeks to harm that great country” (and while saying it, according to Davis, he looked “as if he could strangle the assassins with his own hands”). Marie Seton recalls a far less histrionic and apologetic version. Paul, she says, acknowledged to her in 1937 that “dreadful things” had taken place in the Soviet Union, implying sympathy for those who had “confessed” to an antigovernment “plot” but blanketing his doubts with the extenuating argument that rapid social transformation comes with an inevitable toll. That was a view common in the ranks of pro-Soviet intellectuals everywhere, exemplified in Britain by John Strachey’s influential 1936 book, The Theory and Practice of Socialism, in which he could “find no meaning in the allegation” that Stalin had made himself a dictator and hailed the Soviet system for producing a “far wider measure of democracy than do parliaments or congresses.”17