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I don't know how many people knew Frank who was a member of the SWP in
the late 70s but I knew him quite well and really liked him. This is a
commemoration from a couple of his colleagues in the CUNY system from
the journal Socialism and Democracy (Issue 2, 2015), a journal he helped
to found.
1. Michael E. Brown
Frank Rosengarten and I were colleagues at Queens College from 1967
until his early retirement, which I remember asking him to reconsider in
the light of what he had to offer students. By then, however, he was
uncomfortable teaching and had a number of projects that he needed time
to develop and complete, and I am sure that there were family
considerations as well. Frank and I got to know each other during the
sit-ins of 1967–69 at Queens. Both of us spoke often at meetings of
students and faculty. I believe that it was at the end of the sixties
that Frank interviewed me for an Italian newspaper as someone he
considered to be an activist of the New Left. The result used two full
pages of the newspaper, and when I look back on what I said about what
inspired me as an activist, I realize that knowing Frank in the
subsequent years helped my view of left politics to mature, or at least
I hope it did. I was struck by his productive ambivalence toward the
Communist left in the US, and by his attempt to reconcile his own
political interests and dispositions with those on the left with whom he
had differences of opinion. He was willing to work with them because his
conception of a left was broad enough to sustain what Castoriadis
referred to as the “revolutionary perspective.”
I remember going to a convention of the Socialist Workers Party in the
late 1970s. While I was impressed with the discussions, and found them
more informed, more complex, and in some ways more open and interesting
than what I saw in various meetings of the CPUSA (which I occasionally
attended with friends who had remained members), I remained convinced
that there were many ways of realizing a socialist vision and that the
history of the CPUSA was part of all of our history and not something to
be dismissed as “the old left” as my friends and comrades in SDS
described it (often somewhat lovingly at any rate). I was more favorably
disposed to the Russian Revolution and its long aftermath than Frank,
and our discussions always left me with a greater understanding of the
usefulness of ambivalence on the Left.
When we began the Research Group on Socialism and Democracy, and started
publishing the journal in the form of a newsletter, we thought of it as
far more limited and local than it turned out to be. When we expanded it
to the form of a journal, our first aim was to publish different points
of view on the left, views we might have disagreed with but felt should
be part of the general discussion. Our second aim was to consider
methodological and theoretical problems intrinsic to the continuing
debate over the Russian Revolution and the history of American
Communism. Thanks to Frank's willingness to devote an enormous amount of
time to building Socialism and Democracy, we found ourselves with a fine
group of board members and with regular correspondents from around the
world. Randy Martin and George Snedeker eventually joined us and helped
assemble the papers given at our conference on the history of the CPUSA.
The book we edited is still in print and remains one of the important
contributions to the literature on American communism.1
Between meetings and the work involved in assembling the issues of the
journal, acquiring mailing lists, and mailing it, Frank and I put in
what, in retrospect, was an incredible amount of time and energy. Frank
was deeply involved in everything that appeared in the journal. The two
of us wrote many introductory essays to issues, and always tried to
sustain a sense of dialogue on the left rather than promoting a specific
line. Still, we had our own way of understanding the left, and articles
written by Frank, me, and Randy reflected both our differences and how
we reconciled those differences. Frank was a generous colleague, willing
to discuss issues on the left at a moment's notice and with a
thoroughness that one finds in all his scholarly work, which was itself
of considerable importance in various areas of study. Frank was not only
generous and tremendously hardworking; he was creative and able to reach
out to others so that Socialism and Democracy gained a reputation as an
important interdisciplinary journal of the Left.
When Marie and I moved to Boston, and Frank could no longer support the
journal primarily on his own, it seemed that that chapter was over.
However, John McDermott called me and suggested renewing the journal in
the Boston area, which we were able to do with the help of Victor
Wallis, who eventually became its executive editor. As one would have
expected, the change in personnel led to a change in content and focus.
Under Victor, the journal has continued to be important and its
influence has expanded.
Frank later rejoined the journal, but as a participant rather than an
editor, and he was supportive of the new direction. Frank was a model of
a left thinker who was always willing to listen to the ideas of those
who differed profoundly with him. I found the few times I heard him
speak to audiences about political issues inspiring because he was so
thorough in his preparation, so modest and open in the ways in which he
developed arguments in favor of and potentially critical of his own
point of view, and so respectful of the other speakers – some of whom
were occasionally quite disrespectful toward him. Students lucky enough
to have attended those events learned, I believe, how to be a serious
thinker and yet never take one's mind off the most fundamental ideas at
the heart of the left project. Like so many others, I miss Frank as a
good friend, a colleague, and an exemplary thinker and humanist in the
best sense of the term.
2. George Snedeker
The first time I met Frank Rosengarten was in 1982 when he came to a
talk I gave at the CUNY Graduate Center about E.P. Thompson's theory of
culture. Frank showed an interest in my remarks and asked several
thoughtful questions. He and Mike Brown had recently founded the
Research Group on Socialism and Democracy (RGSD) in the sociology
department of the Graduate Center. They invited me, along with several
other graduate students, to become involved with the RGSD, which began
publishing Socialism and Democracy in 1985, with Frank and Mike as its
first editors.
Frank and I became friends, and he participated in several study groups
which met at my apartment. One of these focused on the history of the
Communist Party USA. In 1989, largely upon Frank's suggestion, the RGSD
organized a conference on the history of the CPUSA. The focus of the
conference was on the revisionist historiography of Communism that was
then being produced by a new generation of historians and sociologists.
The book we edited, New Studies in the Culture and Politics of U.S.
Communism, was widely reviewed and is still in print.
Frank was very supportive of my scholarly work. After reading my article
about the radical black sociologist Oliver C. Cox called, “Race, Class
and the Struggle for Democracy,” he suggested that I submit it to S&D,
where it was published in 1988 (a revised version appears in my book,
The Politics of Critical Theory). Frank's editorial comments were always
helpful to me. It was easy to see that he had read my essays with great
care.
Frank read my satirical novel, The Cutting Edge (published under the pen
name David Lansky). He told me that he enjoyed my criticisms of
contemporary college life as well as my sense of humor. He laughed as he
said this. Frank had a great love of literature. He was always telling
me that sociologists should read more novels to get a broader
understanding of society.
Frank believed strongly in the values of liberal humanism. His
commitment to the goal of achieving a socialist society was grounded in
a belief in liberty, equality and democracy. He was confident that
creating a socialist society was possible. He believed that the choice
we face is between socialism and barbarism.
During one of our last phone conversations, Frank and I discussed his
review of Lawrence Friedman's biography of Erich Fromm (in this issue of
S&D). Frank told me that he greatly enjoyed the biography, particularly
its discussion of Fromm's participation in the Frankfurt School research
project on German fascism – comparing middle- and working-class
families, with a focus on the role of the authoritarian personality in
Hitler's rise to power. Erich Fromm became one of the most important
public intellectuals in post-war America. Like Fromm, Rosengarten was a
socialist humanist.
Recent developments in social theory were some of Frank's major
interests. His intellectual curiosity led him to consider new ideas on
the nexus between the personal and the global dimensions of capitalism.
I never understood how Frank could get so much work done. He produced
one book after the other: from Proust to Gramsci to C.L.R. James to the
Italian poet and philosopher Leopardi. Frank was a Renaissance Man. He
seemed to have an endless supply of energy. After his retirement from
teaching, he enrolled in the PhD program in French at the CUNY Graduate
Center where he wrote a dissertation on Proust's early writings. He had
a particular interest in the novel as an expression of culture.
Frank's scholarly work as an Italianist focused on the struggle against
Fascism. It would be an understatement to say that his intellectual
interests and scholarship were wide-ranging. I read his book on Proust
as well as his innovative study of C.L.R. James. Both were well
researched and carefully written.
Frank Rosengarten was one of the most generous people I have ever known.
His death was a great loss to me, as I'm sure it was to everyone who had
the good fortune to know and work with him.
Notes
1 New Studies in the Politics and Culture of U.S. Communism (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1993).
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