African-American prodigy learns racism not a thing in Stalin's USSR, sings his and communism's praises. Stalin rewards him for his continuous loyalty. After Stalin's death and horrors are revealed, he attempts suicide and is emotionally broken, but never recants. Today, his alma mater is celebrating his impressive accomplishments but ignoring his history with communism and Stalin.
Racism was of course a huge thing in the USSR, but racism against blacks was not, because there were so dew blacks that blacks were a curiosity, not an oppressed class.
USSR also used the fact of racism in the US (principally racism toward black people) as a talking point on the evils of capitalism.
Simultaneously, USSR was enforcing its own brand of Russian nationalism in the outer republics. But the asymmetry in media freedom between East and West made this non-obvious as it was happening.
> Failing to acknowledge this checkered legacy ultimately does a disservice to the goals he fought for
What checkered legacy? That the country he was born in was so broken he was willing to give up everything and go to a foreign land in hope of a better life?
> Can a man endowed with genius squander it through extreme political blindness
How did he squander it? He was met with racism every step of the way until he said 'fuck it' and left. I'd hardly call that squandering.
This writer has a stick up his ass. Regular people just want to lead a regular life. I'm an immigrant, living in a foreign land - my parents didn't immigrate because of political beliefs. People leave because their everyday life could be vastly improved. Everyday life has nothing to do with political beliefs, because most people are a-political, as are most things we do everyday.
This guy was a football player, actor and singer, not an intellectual who read Marx and Adam Smith.
This story is a tragedy and an embarrassment of USA's history of slavery and racism that drove a capable citizen to abandon his country, only to find a different can of worms across the globe, not 'self-delusion'.
At first, this seems like a typical attack article, attempting to use one opinion to discredit all of a person's positions, including the "card carrying member" cliche. But...
"A few days later Robeson explained to his [11 year old] son that “sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.” Robeson was talking about the murder of a poet friend in one of Stalin's purges, but the generalization is horrific.
Yeah, it happens fairly regularly. Majorities are scary in that they seem to be able to willfully blind themselves to any moral standard in pursuit of what seems like a good idea for their prosperity.
Nobody is going to admit to thinking that way, but there is pretty overwhelming evidence that most people do. History is replete with genocides and selective memories. The cynic in me notes that by not acknowledging the threat they pose, majorities free themselves of the need to limit their own power in the name of decency and giving others a fair go.
That can also be true for minorities evidenced by crime networks of all sorts. So the quantity isn't that relevant. It is just essential to separate people into distinct groups. That allows you to create enemies in the first place.
You don't even need the mafia. Many national governments have been dedicated to persecuting the majority. But it's relatively rare because that's far more expensive than having the majority oppression the minority
True, rule of the majority probably never even happened. It is always a minority rule that can have the support of the majority. But that isn't even a necessary criteria as many states have demonstrated.
Definitely, and I'm not trying to say anything like "both sides". You absolutely need moral judgement.
All I'm saying is that it's quite easy to fall into a mental pattern where oppression becomes acceptable. Most people in Germany during WWII were not Nazis, and yet many of them happily accepted the status quo that made what happened possible.
>What exactly are the “great injustices” being inflicted on white supremacists, Nazis, and Islamic fundamentalists?
Killing the children of Islamic fundamentalists in drone strikes. Holding them for years without any trial or recourse in gitmo. Torture. I'm sure there are other things.
Injustices are subjective. Nazis would consider it a great injustice that we don't allow them to go around killing other minorities, or that we made Nazi parties illegal in the western world.
What I'm getting at is that the OP statement can be bent to fit whatever ideology you want, and with that be able to get widespread support to "repress" minorities.
It's not only "evil" people the ones repressing others.
I would never side with the position as stated. But I have only weird and unsatisfying explanations of how that's compatible with supporting a government that sometimes fights wars or courts that sometimes convict innocents. That's arguably why Stalinism worked - if you're motivated to, you can force yourself into a perspective where the purges are just a bit of malfunctioning in the justice system.
There were many die hard Stalin apologists. I remember the story recounted by Sydney Hook of Bertold Brecht not only excusing but cheerleading Stalin's show trials, proclaiming:
"The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot."
There was also Michael Ignatieff's infamous interview of Eric Hobsbawm, the British historian and Communist Party member, who argued that even if he knew that Stalin would murder 15 million people ahead of time, it would still have been worth it. Hobsbawm's reasoning is familiar (see 10:56 into the interview):
Ignatieff: At about this period '33-'34, the Kulak class is being liquidated and millions of peasants are dying, being starved, or being deported by Stalin [...] If you had known that, would it have made a difference to you at that point? To your commitment to being a communist?
Hobsbawm: [...] If I were to give you a retrospective answer, the answer of a historian, I would have said 'Probably not'.
Ignatieff: Why?
Hobsbawm: Because in a period of mass murder and mass suffering are absolutely universal, the chance of a new world being born in great suffering would still have been worth backing. Now looking back as a historian, I'd say that the sacrifices of the Russian people were probably only marginally worthwhile.
It’s a little rich to expect any serious conversation when our society generally holds genocidal war criminals like Kissinger and Stacey Abrams in high esteem. And really, I could write pages more of American crimes that are generally seen as the cost of running an empire by mainstream media and politicians, and so could you. That doesn’t mean you need to agree with it.
Do you really think it makes sense to end serious conversations of the ramifications and consequences of political allegiance to questionable political leaders because Kissinger and Abrams?
It seems like basic logic would suggest the opposite, right?
Why shouldn't we dismiss your comment as some weak Wuddaboutism?
> Why shouldn't we dismiss your comment as some weak Wuddaboutism?
Because that implies they are equally bad when that's very unlikely. It is giving undue weight to the less bad which makes the more bad side look better than it is.
Trying to identify themes absent from media is a powerful tool. There’s certainly conversation to be had here—I’m no Stalin apologist, and the USSR is endlessly fascinating to compare to the US. American war crimes do not cancel out the crimes of the USSR.
The article doesn’t advance substantive values to take fault with. It doesn’t levy much criticism against Stalin, allowing existing American culture to do the heavy lifting. The climax of the article is the man confiding to his son that he believes Stalin’s deeds are justified. Robeson is dead and not quite the “towering social figure” the author says he was; at least not anymore, and likely not to most people reading the article. The intended communication must be the paradox of a man committed to social justice who supported a mass-killing cult figure. This is a claim of hypocrisy very comparable to claims that people levy against the US daily. However, in attempting to critique Kissinger or Abrams, I hope to critique the imperialist nature of American culture and particularly our sense of nation that is blindingly obvious since the wall fell, my entire life.
Meanwhile the USSR is long gone; what is the end the authors hope for? If we applied the same standard to the kinds of people American politicians openly associate with at public social functions, half of congress would be “canceled” for idly chatting over champagne with war criminals, let alone confiding their support in private to a child. Hell, most Americans are complicit in American crimes by the logic illustrated in the article. I’m fine with a high standard, but that’s not what they were trying to imply.
This is an attempt to frame contemporary political movements on the left that are ostensibly domestic and material as national security concerns, even if only in the back of your head. I’m open to other interpretations.
TL;DR:
African-American prodigy learns racism not a thing in Stalin's USSR, sings his and communism's praises. Stalin rewards him for his continuous loyalty. After Stalin's death and horrors are revealed, he attempts suicide and is emotionally broken, but never recants. Today, his alma mater is celebrating his impressive accomplishments but ignoring his history with communism and Stalin.