Norman Penner (February 21, 1921 - April 16, 2009) was

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

, a writer and historian, a war veteran and a former activist in the Communist Party of Canada and the

Labor-Progressive Party The Labor-Progressive Party (french: Parti ouvrier-progressiste) was the legal Front organization, front of the Communist Party of Canada from 1943 to 1959. Origins and initial success In the 1940 Canadian federal election, 1940 federal elect ...

who broke with the party as a result of the events of 1956. Penner was the son of

Jacob Penner Jacob Penner (August 12, 1880 – August 28, 1965) was a popular international socialist politician in Canada. A founder of the Social Democratic Party of Canada and the Communist Party of Canada, Penner was elected to the Winnipeg city counci ...

, a leading member of the Communist Party and popular

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...

. He graduated from high school in 1937 and then worked from 1938 to 1941 as the full-time officer for the Winnipeg branch of the Communist Party.Professor Emeritus Norman Penner was a Glendon mainstay
Y-Files, York University, April 24, 2009 He enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1941 and served overseas during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

as a signalman. When he returned home in 1947, he became an organizer in Toronto for the Labor-Progressive Party as the Communist Party was then known. He ran in the 1951 Ontario election in

York South York South was an electoral district (or "riding") in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1904 to 1979. The riding is notable for the 1942 federal by-election in which newly elected Conservative leader Ar ...

and the 1953 federal election in

finishing with 877 and 755 votes respectively. He also ran for reeve of York Township in the 1954 and 1955 municipal elections, coming in third and fourth place, respectively."Few Brave Cold Rain To Vote in 3 Suburbs", Taylor, Ewart., ''The Globe and Mail'' (1936-2016); Toronto, Ont. oronto, Ont5 Dec 1955: 1 He broke with the party in 1957 as a result of the

Soviet invasion of Hungary The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

and

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

Secret Speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" (russian: «О культе личности и его последствиях», «''O kul'te lichnosti i yego posledstviyakh''»), popularly known as the "Secret Speech" (russian: секре ...

the previous year, events which caused the disillusionment of many party members. After leaving the party he worked for several years as a salesman in the electrical heating business. In 1964, he decided to go back to school part-time and enrolled in political science at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

at the age of 41 going on to earn a BA, MA and PhD.Norman Penner
Death Notice, ''Toronto Star'', April 25, 2009 Penner was hired as a lecturer at York University's

Glendon College Glendon College is a public liberal arts college in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Formally the federated bilingual campus of York University, it is one of the school's nine colleges and 11 faculties with 100 full-time faculty members and a student po ...

in 1972 and soon became a professor and head of the political science department, continuing to teach until 1995. He has written extensively on the Canadian left. Penner, discovered the long forgotten manuscript, then edited and introduced ''Winnipeg 1919: The Strikers' Own History of the Winnipeg General Strike'' in 1973, published ''The Canadian Left: A Critical Analysis'' in 1977 and contributed three chapters to as well as editing ''Keeping Canada Together Means Changing Our Thinking'' in 1978. He published ''Canadian Communism: The Stalin Years and Beyond'' in 1988 and ''From Protest to Power: Social Democracy in Canada 1900 to Present'' in 1992 as well as numerous articles, reviews and book chapters. His brother,

Roland Penner Roland Penner (July 30, 1924 – May 31, 2018) was a political activist and lawyer who became a cabinet minister in the Manitoba provincial government and dean of law at the University of Manitoba. Education and early career Penner was born i ...

, was also a Communist activist in his youth and later served as

Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

of Manitoba.

References

External links

Death Notice
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penner, Norman Canadian socialists Canadian Marxists 1921 births 2009 deaths Canadian political writers York University faculty Canadian male non-fiction writers Labor-Progressive Party candidates in the 1953 Canadian federal election 20th-century Canadian historians Canadian Army personnel of World War II Canadian military personnel Royal Canadian Corps of Signals soldiers Glendon College faculty