Difference between revisions of "Leonard Schapiro"

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<blockquote style="background-color:ivory;border:1pt solid Darkgoldenrod;padding:1%;font-size:10pt">"[I believe] that the first requirement of a civilized society is order; and that the achievements of human culture are always produced by an elite...and that the preservation of this elite is more important for human values than social and conomic equality” – Leonard Schapiro <ref>Leoard Schapiro, ‘[http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/120052181/PDFSTART My Fifty Years of Social Science]’, ''Government and Opposition'' Volume 15 Issue 3-4, Pages 486 – 496</ref></blockquote>
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'''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.
 
'''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.
  

Revision as of 10:57, 23 October 2008

"[I believe] that the first requirement of a civilized society is order; and that the achievements of human culture are always produced by an elite...and that the preservation of this elite is more important for human values than social and conomic equality” – Leonard Schapiro [1]


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).

Sovietology

The Washington Times identified Schapiro as one of the four founders of Sovietology, along with Philip Moseley of Columbia, Merle Fainsod of Harvard and a non-academic, Bertram Wolfe. "Their books, monographs and articles," according to The Washington Times, "formed the basis for a continuing academic analysis of Soviet affairs." [2]

Adviser to Margaret Thatcher

In early 1980 Schapiro was invited by Margaret Thatcher to lunch at Chequers. Thatcher had been advised by the Foreign Office that the Soviet Union did not pose a serious military threat, so she invited Schapiro and other right-wing experts to take part in a committee offering 'independent' advice. Michael Howard, who was also invited, recalls the following in his memoires:

In the USA a group of hawks formed a well funded Committee on the Present Danger, consisting largely of pupils and associates of Albert Wohlstetter, who urged the breaking off of arms-control negotiations and massive rearmament. Mrs Thatcher was temperamentally inclined to agree with them. The Foreign Office was not. Not surpringly, the Prime Minister sought further options...She asked Hugh [Thomas] to set up a small committee to draft independent recommendations for the conduct of British foreign policy consisting of myself, Leonard Schapiro and Elie Kedourie. Leonard was a leading expert on the Soviet Union, Elie on the Middle East. Both were deeply pessimistic. The Soviets were on the march, thought Leonard, and as determined as ever on world conquest...They believed that the recently concluding Helsinki Accords had been a defeat for the West by 'legitimizing' the Soviet control of Eastern Europe...We put together a totally incoherent docuement which deserved to go straight into the waste paper basket and probably did. [3]

Affiliations

Notes

  1. Leoard Schapiro, ‘My Fifty Years of Social Science’, Government and Opposition Volume 15 Issue 3-4, Pages 486 – 496
  2. Arnold Beichman, 'Peer review for shortcomings of Sovietology', The Washington Times, 9 November 1992
  3. Michael Howard, Captain Professor The Memoirs of Sir Michael Howard (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006) pp.192-3
  4. John Jenks British Propaganda And News Media in the Cold War, Edinburgh:EUP, 2006, p.70