Leonard Schapiro

Leonard Bertram Schapiro (born 22 April 1908, Glasgow - 2 November 1983, London) was a British academic, scholar of Russian politics and right wing operative. He taught for many years at the London School of Economics, where he was Professor of Political Science with Special Reference to Russian Studies.

Born in Glasgow, he was taken back to Russia and spent his childhood in Riga and St. Petersburg, but returned to Britain with his parents in 1920 and completed his education in London.

For many years Schapiro practised as a barrister, and it was not until 1955 that he published his first book -The Origins of the Communist Autocracy - and took up his first academic appointment, at the London School of Economics.

Schapiro's most famous book was The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, first published in 1960 with a revised and expanded edition in 1970.

After his death, some of his scattered articles were collected in the volume Russian Studies (1987).

Affiliations

• Information Research Department wrote for them eg in Why Communism Must Fail

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• Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies
• Institute for the Study of Conflict