Roger Keeran, also Roger Roy Keeran or Roger R. Keeran (born in 1944, in Lapeer, Michigan),Congresso Internacional Marx em Maio, 8, 9 e 10 de Maio de 2014, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
"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, Princeton,

Rutgers Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College and was aff ...

and the New York State University (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 university, public research university in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 375 programs. It is Michigan's third-l ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

, Michigan. To pay for his studies, he worked in a

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

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 The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. 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 university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in Ithaca, 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 United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and sou ...

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 Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', "''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 (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

for three decades, and is currently a member of the advisory board of the Marxist journal '' Science & Society''.

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. 164–166Referred 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

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keeran, Roger 1944 births Members of the Communist Party USA Living people People from Lapeer, Michigan Wayne State University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni Writers from Michigan Cornell University faculty