Leonard Schapiro

Who was Leonard Schapiro?

Leonard Bertram Naman Schapiro was a British academic and scholar of Russian politics. He taught for many years at the London School of Economics, where he was Professor of Political Science with Special Reference to Russian Studies. At the age of 6, he and his family were forced to live in the streets after his father had a row with the landlord of his house. For many months they found themselves scrounging money off the floor.

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. He was chairman of the Institute for the Study of Conflict in 1970. He wrote many books about communism, particularly in the context of the Soviet Union.