The following is a tribute to Professor Seweryn Bialer written by Linda J. Cook.

Dr. Seweryn Bialer was Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations, a member of the Harriman Institute faculty, and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 1983.  He was a lifelong student of Soviet politics and a prolific scholar, most notably as the author of Stalin’s Successors, a brilliant analysis of the Soviet system’s decades-long stability.  In the Gorbachev era, he turned to that system’s collapse and transition, publishing and lecturing widely in both academic and policy worlds.

Seweryn Bialer brought to the Harriman Institute a background that gave him unique insights into Soviet politics. After surviving the Holocaust as an adolescent, he rose in the Polish Communist Party from 1946 to 1956, then defected and earned a PhD in political science at Columbia. Bringing together, in the words of Jack Snyder, “Marx and Weber . . . the classics of Western social science . . . with years in the trenches of the communist apparat . . . [H]e spoke both languages and saw through both sets of conceptual lenses.” Especially in the Gorbachev period, Dr. Bialer became an authoritative communicator between reformers in Moscow, to which he traveled frequently, and his colleagues. He served as “the vehicle to transmit his analysis from conversations with (prominent reformer Alexander) Yakovlev to the 15th floor” of the International Affairs Building.  He became a sought-after advisor in the policy world, meeting with Reagan, Thatcher and others.

In almost thirty years at Columbia, Professor Bialer taught and mentored generations of students.  His students have been active as teachers, scholars and in public life.  His intellectual influence and the loyalty and gratitude he inspired in many stand as part of his and Harriman’s legacy.