Okay I really have to get to other work but this is so fascinating. I refer you all to the liner notes from one of Josh's recordings for Smithsonian folkways and the detailed description of the provenance of "Beloved Comrade." The Smithsonian folks make every effort at accuracy in their notes.

http://www.folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.aspx?itemid=34999

To quote from the opening lines of the liner note for this song:

"This is dedicated to the late President. It was a favorite of his," Josh says in his introduction to an incomplete take of this song . . . Josh had performed the song more than a year earlier in Langston Hughes BBC radio play "The Man Who Went to War, which also featured Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry."

The plot thickens.