# Leonard Schapiro

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British historian

For the American computer scientist, see [Leonard Shapiro](/source/Leonard_Shapiro).

Leonard Schapiro CBE Schapiro in the 1970s at the LSE Born Leonard Bertram Naman Schapiro (1908-04-22)22 April 1908 Glasgow, United Kingdom Died 2 November 1983(1983-11-02) (aged 75) London, United Kingdom Alma mater University College London Occupation Academic Organization Institute for the Study of Conflict Known for Historian Board member of Information Research Department Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies Institute for the Study of Conflict Parent(s) Max Schapiro, Leah Levine

**Leonard Bertram Naman Schapiro** [CBE](/source/Commander_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire) (22 April 1908 – 2 November 1983) was a British scholar of the origins and development of the Soviet political system. He taught for many years at the [London School of Economics](/source/London_School_of_Economics), where he was Professor of Political Science with Special Reference to Russian Studies. Schapiro was best known for his study, *The Communist Party of the Soviet Union*, though his early work on the rise to power of the Bolshevik Party, *The Origins of the Communist Autocracy*, was his most intellectually ambitious contribution to the field of Soviet studies. Because of his prominence in the field and his insistence on viewing the USSR through a normative lens, Schapiro accumulated his share of detractors, including those who were uncomfortable with his embrace of totalitarianism as a descriptor of Soviet rule and those who alleged that his reputed ties to British intelligence services made him little more than a political propagandist.

Schapiro was of Russian-Jewish background; his father, Max, was the [University of Glasgow](/source/University_of_Glasgow)-educated son of a wealthy businessman who owned a timber mill and forests outside [Riga](/source/Riga), [Latvia](/source/Latvia); his mother, Leah, was a Polish rabbi's daughter.[1] Born in [Glasgow](/source/Glasgow), he was taken to Russia and spent some of his childhood in Riga (his father having taken over the family timber business) and [St. Petersburg](/source/St._Petersburg), when his father took a position in railway administration.[2] He returned to Britain with his parents in 1920 and completed his education in [London](/source/London), at [St Paul's School](/source/St_Paul's_School%2C_London), then at [University College, London](/source/University_College%2C_London). He was [called to the Bar](/source/Call_to_the_Bar) from [Gray's Inn](/source/Gray's_Inn) in 1932, returning to the law after the [Second World War](/source/Second_World_War) until 1955. His fluency in Russian, German, French and Italian led him to work for the B.B.C.'s [Monitoring Service](/source/BBC_Monitoring) in 1940; in 1942 he joined the General Staff at the [War Office](/source/War_Office), and from 1945 to 1946 served in the Intelligence Division of the German Control Command, reaching the rank of [lieutenant-colonel](/source/Lieutenant-colonel).[3][4] Schapiro's traditional liberalism alienated him from those scholars more sympathetic to the goals, if not the means, of Soviet socialism, such as [E. H. Carr](/source/E._H._Carr).

A scholar with interests that ranged well beyond political history, Schapiro was the author of an authoritative biography of Ivan Turgenev,[5] as well as the translator into English of Turgenev's novel *[Spring Torrents](/source/Spring_Torrents)*. After his death, some of his articles on liberalism, Marxism, and literature appeared in the volume *Russian Studies*.[6] He had married firstly, in 1943, [Isabel de Madariaga](/source/Isabel_de_Madariaga), an historian of eighteenth century Russia;[7] following their 1976 divorce, he married editor Roma Thewes.[8]

## Books

- *The Origins of the Communist Autocracy*, G. Bell and Sons, 1955.

- *[The Government and Politics of the Soviet Union](https://archive.org/details/governmentpoliticsussrschapiro)*, Random House Publishers, 1965, five editions total up to 1977. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780091055905](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780091055905)

- *[The Communist Party of the Soviet Union](https://archive.org/details/cpsuschapiro)*, Random House Publishers, 1970. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780394470146](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780394470146)

- *Totalitarianism: Key Concepts in Political Science,* The University of Michigan, 1972.

- *The Russian Revolutions of 1917: The Origins of Modern Communism,* Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1984.

- *Russian Studies,* Viking Penguin, Inc., Publishers, 1987. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0670812813](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0670812813)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Leonard Bertram Schapiro (1908-1983): An Intellectual Memoir, Peter Reddaway, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1984, p. 1

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Leonard Bertram Schapiro (1908-1983): An Intellectual Memoir, Peter Reddaway, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1984, pp. 1-2

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Leonard Bertram Schapiro (1908-1983): An Intellectual Memoir, Peter Reddaway, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1984, pp. 3-4

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** ["The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"](http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-31658). *[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography](/source/Dictionary_of_National_Biography#Oxford_Dictionary_of_National_Biography)* (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1093/ref:odnb/31658](https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fref%3Aodnb%2F31658). (Subscription, [Wikipedia Library](https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/partners/88/) access or [UK public library membership](https://www.oxforddnb.com/help/subscribe#public) required.)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Leonard Schapiro, *Turgenev: His Life and Times*, Harvard University Press, 1982

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** *Russian Studies: Leonard Schapiro*, ed. Ellen Dahrendorf, Penguin 1986.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** Scott, Hamish (2014-07-15). ["Isabel de Madariaga obituary"](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/15/isabel-de-madariaga). *The Guardian*.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** Leonard Bertram Schapiro (1908-1983): An Intellectual Memoir, Peter Reddaway, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1984, p. 30

- Oxford [Dictionary of National Biography](/source/Dictionary_of_National_Biography)

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