Leonard Schapiro

Vocation

British academic, Sovietologist and right wing adviser to British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. He taught for many years at the London School of Economics, where he was Professor of Political Science with Special Reference to Russian Studies. 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 wrote in 1980: “the first twenty of the fifty adult years of my life were spent either in practice at the Bar, or in military intelligence” 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. After his death, some of his scattered articles were collected in the volume Russian Studies (1987). He was married to Isabel de Mandariaga. He died in London on 2 November 1983, aged 75. Link to Wikipedia