Roger Keeran, also Roger Roy Keeran or Roger R. Keeran (born in 1944, in
Lapeer, Michigan
Lapeer ( ') is a City (Michigan), city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is the county seat of Lapeer County, Michigan, Lapeer County. As of the United States Census, 2010, 2010 census, the city population was 8,841. Most of the city was incorporat ...
),
[Congresso Internacional Marx em Maio, 8, 9 e 10 de Maio de 2014, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa](_blank)
"Roger Keeran - nasceu em Lapeer, Michigan, em 1944. Licenciado em Filosofia pela Wayne State University (Detroit), Mestre de História Americana e Doutorado em História pela Universidade de Wisconsin (Madison). Enquanto estudava, trabalhou na fábrica de automóveis da General Motors e foi co-presidente do Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Ensinou nas Universidades de Cornell, Princeton e Rutgers e foi professor e responsável pelo programa de pós-graduação em estudos sobre as políticas laborais do Empire State College (Universidade Estadual de Nova York). É autor de The Communist Party and the Auto Workers Union (Indiana University Press, 1980), e co-autor, com Thomas Kenny, de Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union, International Publishers, 1984 (em Portugal: O Socialismo Traído. Por trás do colapso da União Soviética, Edições Avante!, 2008). Escreveu também diversos artigos sobre a História dos Comunistas nos Estados Unidos. Desde 2013, é Professor Emérito no Empire State College." is an American historian and university professor who taught successively at
Cornell
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
,
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...
,
Rutgers and the
New York State University
The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...
(SUNY).
A specialist of Labor and Policy studies, he published, in 1980, ''The Communist Party and the Auto Workers' Unions'' and, in 2004, with co-author Thomas Kenny, ''Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union'' (a book translated into several languages), as well as various articles in history or sociology journals. He is now Professor Emeritus of the Empire State College at SUNY after retiring in 2013.
Biography
Education
In the 1960s, Keeran obtained a B.A. at
Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
, Michigan. To pay for his studies, he worked in a
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
automobile plant. He was also co-president of the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam.
He next obtained an M.A. and a Ph.D. in history at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison.
His published thesis was titled ''Communists and Auto Workers: The Struggle for a Union, 1919-1941'' (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974).
Academic career
In September 1973, he began his first teaching job at the ILR School (School of Industrial and Labor Relations) at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in
Ithaca
Ithaca most commonly refers to:
*Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey''
*Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca
*Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College
Ithaca, Ithaka ...
, New York. Taking a keen interest in the work of Communist Party activists in the US automobile industry from the mid-1920s to the late 1940s (when the Party's forces were decimated), he published ''The Communist Party and the Auto Workers' Unions,'' which has since become a classic on the subject. However, the book’s academic approach to the purge of Communists from the
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico ...
conflicted with US Cold War policies in effect at the time, and he lost his job at Cornell. He went on to teach at Princeton and Rutgers in New Jersey,
as well as the Empire State School of the State University of New York (SUNY), where he mentored students in the Labor and Policy studies master's degree program, before retiring in 2013 as Professor Emeritus.
In 2004, with labor economist Thomas Kenny, he co-authored ''Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union'', a book which in the ensuing years was to be translated into French, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Persian and Chinese. In the words of journalist Peter Symon in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', "''Socialism Betrayed'' traces the many circumstances and deviations that undoubtedly contributed to the final overthrow of socialism and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union into many supposedly independent republics."
The first English edition was soon to be out of print mainly owing to the favorable publicity it garnered from reviews in left-wing newspapers and journals such as ''People's Weekly World'' (U.S.), ''
The Morning Star'' (Great-Britain), ''Socialist Voice'' (Ireland), ''
People's Voice'' (Canada), ''
The Spark'' (Canada), ''The Guardian'' (Great-Britain), ''Australian Marxist Review'' (Australia), ''Marxistische Blaetter'' (Germany).
Political commitment
Keeran has been a member of the
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
for three decades, and is currently a member of the advisory board of the Marxist journal ''
Science & Society
''Science & Society: A Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of Marxist scholarship. It covers economics, philosophy of science, historiography, women's studies, literature, the arts, and other social sci ...
''.
His published work
Besides his two major books, Keeran has published a number of articles in history or sociology journals such as ''Michigan History'', ''Labor History'', ''Science & Society'', ''Industrial Relations'', ''Policy Studies Journal'', ''Nature, Society, and Thought'', and was a contributor to ''The Encyclopedia of the American Left''.
Books
*''Milwaukee Reformers in the Progressive Era: The City Club of Milwaukee, 1908-1922'', University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1969, 290 p. (2 editions published in 1969)
*''Communists and Auto Workers: the Struggle for a Union, 1919-1941'', University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974, 766 p. (6 editions published between 1974 and 1984)
*''The Communist Party and the Auto Workers' Unions'', Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1980, 352 p., (3 editions published between 2004 and 2010)
*With
Elaine Harger and Paul C. Mishler, ''Bibliography of the Works of Philip Sheldon Foner, Empire State College / SUNY, 1994, 38 p. (2 editions published in 1995 in English)
*With Thomas Keeny, ''Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union'', International Publishers Co Inc., U.S. 2004, 230 p., (3 editions published between 2004 and 2010 in English) – French translation: ''Le socialisme trahi et les causes de la chute de l'URSS'', Delga, 333 p., 2012 (translated by Hervé Fuyet and Janine Lazorthes) (1 edition published in 2012) – Portuguese translation: ''Socialismo Traído - Por trás do Colapso da União Soviética'', tradução Vítor Guerreiro, Edições Avante, 2008,
Articles
*With James P. O'Brien, Ann Gordon, Paul Buhle, Jerry Markowitz, "New Left Historians of the 1960s," in ''Radical America'', Vol. 4, No 8-9, Nov. 1970, p. 81-106
*"Communists and UAW Factionalism, 1937-1939," in ''Michigan History'', Vol. 60, Summer 1976, p. 115-135
*"Communist Influence in the Automobile Industry, 1920-1933: Paving the Way for an Industrial Union," in ''Labor History'', Vol. 20, Issue 2, Spring 1979, p. 189-225
*" "Everything for Victory": Communist Influence in the Auto Industry During World War II," in ''Science & Society'', Vol. 43, No. 1, Spring, 1979, p. 1-28
"Reply to Professor Lichtenstein" in ''Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society'', Vol. 19, Issue 2, March 1980, p. 136-139
*"The International Workers Order and the Origins of the CIO," in ''Labor History'', Vol. 30, Issue 3, 1989, p. 385-408
*With Greg Tarpinian, "Public Policy and the Recent Decline of Strikes," in ''Policy Studies Journal'', Vol. 18, No 2, Winter, 1989–90, p. 461–470
*"International Workers Order," in Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas eds., ''The Encyclopedia of the American Left'', New York, Garland, 1990, p. 379-380
*"The Communist Influence on American Labor," in Michael E. Brown, et al., eds, ''New Studies in the Politics and Culture of U.S. Communism'', Monthly Review Press, New York, 1993, p. 164-166
[Referred to as "a good summary of the role of Communist Party Activists in the labor movement" by Michael D. Yates in ''Why Unions Matter'', NYU Press, 2009, p. 280).]"National Groups and the Popular Front: The Case of the International Workers Order" in ''Journal of American Ethnic History'', Vol. 14, No 2, Spring, 1995, p. 23-51
*"The Italian Section of the International Workers Order, 1930-1950," in ''Italian American Review'' 7 (Spring/Summer 1999), p. 63-82
*With Thomas Kenny
"A Rejoinder to Erwin Marquit's Critique of Socialism Betrayed" in ''Nature, Society, and Thought'', Vol. 17, No 3, 2004, p. 343-354, followed by Erwin Marquit, "Response to Keeran and Kenny's Rejoinder," p. 355-362
*With Thomas Kenny, "Debating the Soviet Demise: A Rejoinder," i
''Science and Society: A journal of Marxist thought and analysis'' vol. 71, n°1, 2007, p. 103-110
See also
Reviews
*Review by Bert Cochran of ''The Communist Party and the Auto Workers Unions'', in ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 86, No 2, April 1981
*Review by Kenneth Waltzer of ''The Communist Party and the Auto Workers Unions'', in ''The Journal of American History'', 1981, p. 722
by D. R. O'Connor Lysaght of ''Socialism Betrayed'', on the website ''Socialist Democracy''
Reviewby Maria McGavigan of ''Socialism Betrayed'', in ''Etudes marxistes'', No 83, 2009, posted on the website ''INEM''
Reviewby Thomas Riggins of ''Socialism Betrayed'', on the website ''Political Affairs'', August 17, 2004
Under the title "The Need for a Balanced Reappraisal of the USSR — A Review Essay" an in-depth review by Erwin Marquit of ''Socialism Betrayed'', in ''Nature, Society, and Thought'', vol. 16, No 4 (2003), p. 473-506
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keeran, Roger
1944 births
Members of the Communist Party USA
Living people
American communists
People from Lapeer, Michigan
Wayne State University alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni
Writers from Michigan
Cornell University faculty