Seweryn Bialer

About Seweryn's Work

Seweryn Bialer is a political scientist who specializes in Soviet and contemporary Russian studies.

Bialer explores the workings of Soviet and contemporary Russian politics and foreign policy in a comparative context and within the general framework of social science.  His work on Soviet succession and his analysis of the Solidarity movement have become standard works.  His books include Stalin and His Generals (1969); Stalin’s Successors: Leadership, Stability and Change in the Soviet Union (1980); and The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline (1986).  Some of Bialer’s other publications include The Global Rivals (1988, with M. Mandelbaum); Politics, Society and Nationality: Inside Gorbachev’s Russia (1989, editor and contributor); and Soviet-American Relations after the Cold War, (1991, co-edited with R. Jervis).

Biography

Bialer is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor Emeritus of International Relations and Political Science at Columbia University, and was the director (1977-1992) of its Research Institute on International Change.

Bialer studied at the Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland (1947-50), and received an M.A. (1952) and Ph.D. (1955) from the Institute of Social Sciences, Warsaw.  After emigrating to the United States, he received a second Ph.D. (1966) from Columbia University.

Last updated January 1, 2005.

Published on August 1, 1983