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Title: Obituary of Fredy Perlman Author: Anonymous Date: 1985 Language: en Topics: Fredy Perlman, obituary Source: Retrieved on January 1, 2005 from http://www.blackandgreen.org Notes: From the Fifth Estate Vol. 20 #2Indian Summer 1985Published 10/7/85
Fredy Perlman, born August 20, 1934, Brno, Czechoslovakia, died July 26,
1985 Detroit, Michigan
Fredy Perlman was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia on August 20, 1934. He
emigrated with parents to Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1938 just ahead of the
Nazi takeover. The Perlman family came to the United States in 1945 and
lived variously in Mobile, Alabama, Brooklyn, Queens before settling in
Lakeside Park, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio where Fredy
graduated high school.
In 1952 he attended Morehead State College in Kentucky and then UCLA
from 1953–55. Fredy was on the staff of The Daily Bruin, the school
newspaper, when the reactionary university administration fired all of
the editors of the publication. The five editors, including Fredy,
proceeded to publish an independent paper which they distributed on the
campus.
In 1956–59 he attended Columbia University where he met his life-long
companion, Lorraine Nybakken. He originally enrolled as a student of
English Literature but soon concentrated his efforts in philosophy,
political science and European literature. One particularly influential
teacher for him at this time was C. Wright Mills.
In late 1959, he and Lorraine took a cross-country motor scooter trip
mostly on two-lane highways traveling at 25 miles per hour.
From 1959–63, he and Lorraine lived on the lower east side of Manhattan
while Fredy worked on a statistical analysis of the world’s resources
with John Ricklefs. They participated in anti-bomb and pacifist
activities with the Living Theater and others. Fredy was arrested
following a sit-down in Times Square in the fall of 1961. He became the
printer for the Living Theater and during that time wrote The New
Freedom, Corporate Capitalism and a play, Plunder, which he published
himself.
In January 1963, Fredy and Lorraine sailed for Europe on a Swedish
freighter for what they considered a definitive departure. In September
of that year they arrived in Belgrade, Yugoslavia after living some
months in Copenhagen and Paris. In June he had inquired about becoming a
student in Czechoslovakia, but the country of his birth found his
request to be suspect.
From 1963–66 Fredy studied at the Belgrade University Economics Faculty
where he received a master’s degree. His thesis was titled “The
Structure of Backwardness.” He received his Ph.D at the Law Faculty; his
dissertation was titled “Conditions for the Development of a Backward
Region,” which created an outrage among some members of the faculty.
During his last year in Yugoslavia, he was a member of the Planning
Institute for Kosovo and Metohija.
During 1966–69 Fredy and Lorraine lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan where
Fredy was a professor in the Economics Department at Western Michigan
University. Most of his teachings was in introductory social science
courses and again he created outrage among some members of the faulty
when he initiated student-run classes and let the students grade
themselves. During his first year in Kalamazoo, he and Milos Samardzija,
one of his professors from Belgrade, translated I.I. Rubin’s Essay on
Marx’s Theory of Value. Fredy wrote an introduction to the book: “An
Essay on Commodity Fetishism.”
In May 1968 after lecturing for two weeks in Turin, Italy, Fredy went to
Paris on the last train before rail traffic was shut down by strikes. He
participated in the exhilarating May Days in Paris and worked at the
Censier center with the Citroen factory committee. After returning to
Kalamazoo in August, he collaborated with Roger Gregoire in writing
Worker-Student Action Committees, May ’68.
During his last year in Kalamazoo, Fredy had left the university and
together with several other people, mostly students, inaugurated Black
and Red of which six issues appeared. Typing and layout was done at
Fredy and Lorraine’s house and the printing at the Radical Education
Project in Ann Arbor. In January 1969 he completed The Reproduction of
Daily Life. While traveling in Europe in the spring of 1969, he spent
several weeks in Yugoslavia and there wrote Revolt in Socialist
Yugoslavia which was suppressed by the authorities as a CIA plot.
In August 1969 he and Lorraine moved to Detroit where he wrote The
Incoherence of the Intellectual and with others translated Guy Debord’s
Society of the Spectacle.
In 1970 Fredy was one of a large group who set up the Detroit Printing
Co-op with equipment from Chicago which they moved, set-up and learned
to operate. For the next decade, Black & Red publications were printed
there along with countless other projects ranging from leaflets to
newspapers to books.
Between 1971–76, he worked on, often with others, several books, some
original, others translations including Manual for Revolutionary
Leaders, Letters of Insurgents, Arhsinov’s History of the Makhnovist
Movement, Voline’s The Unknown Revolution, and Camatte’s The Wander of
Humanity. During the same years, Fredy began playing the cello, often
playing in chamber music sessions twice a week. In 1971 he and Lorraine
traveled to Alaska by car.
In 1976 Fredy underwent heart surgery to replace a damaged heart valve.
After, he helped write and perform “Who’s Zerelli?” a play critiquing
the authoritarian aspects of the medical establishment.
During 1977–80 he studied (and charted) world history. During these
years, he traveled to Turkey, Egypt, Europe and regions of the U.S. to
visit historic sites with Lorraine. In 1980 he began a comprehensive
history of The Strait (Detroit and surroundings). He did not finish this
work as the first and last chapters remain unwritten. In July 1985, he
estimated that it would take him eight or ten months to complete and
edit the manuscript.
Both Fredy and Lorraine helped on The Fifth Estate doing typesetting and
proofreading as well as contributing articles. Fredy’s most recent
contributions were “Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom” and “The
Continuing Appeal of Nationalism.” During 1982–83, Fredy suspended work
on The Strait to write Against History, Against Leviathan.
In 1983, Fredy joined the cello section of the Dearborn Orchestra and in
June 1985 performed quartets by Mozart and Schumann at a program for
Physicians for Social Responsibility.
On July 26, 1985, Fredy underwent heart surgery at Henry Ford Hospital
to replace two valves. His damaged heart was not able to resume its
functioning at the end of the operation.