Harold Shukman (23 March 1931 – 11 July 2012) was a British historian, specialising in thehistory of Russia.^[1][2][3]

Shukman was born inLondon to a family of Jewish immigrants escaping from theRussian Empire. His father, David Shukman, whose first name he gave to his first born sonDavid Shukman, was part of the Jewish community who lived inBaranow,Congress Poland, before emigrating and settling in the United Kingdom.^[4] After college andnational service, he took theRussian course at theJoint Services School for Linguists, inCambridge andBodmin, Cornwall. Afterwards, he went on to study Russian andSerbo-Croat at theUniversity of Nottingham, gaining a first-class degree. He received his PhD fromOxford University, his topic being theJewish Labour Bund.^[5] Having completed his doctorate in 1960, he took up an academic career at Oxford where he eventually became the director of the Russian centre atSt Antony's College. He retired in 1998.

In addition to numerous academic works, he also translated books byAnatoli Rybakov (Heavy Sand andChildren of the Arbat) and a 1994 biography ofVladimir Lenin byDmitri Volkogonov.

Shukman was married twice. His first wife was Ann King-Farlow, also a Russian scholar, and his second wife Barbara Shukman who is a granddaughter of Benjamin Guggenheim and Florette Seligman Guggenheim, an artist. His son,Henry Shukman, is a meditation teacher and co-founder of The Way.^[6] Another son,David Shukman, is a science journalist.

• Lenin and the Russian Revolution (1967)
• Stalin (1999)
• A History of World Communism (1975) (withWilliam Deakin andH.T. Willetts)
• Rybakov, Anatoli (1981).Heavy Sand. Translated byShukman, Harold. New York: Viking Press.ISBN 978-0-67-036499-2.
• Rybakov, Anatoli (1988).Children of the Arbat. Translated byShukman, Harold. Boston: Little, Brown & Company.ISBN 978-0-31-676372-1.
• (ed.)The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution (1988)
• (ed.)Agents for Change: Intelligence Services in the 21st Century (2000)
• Secret Classrooms: An Untold Story of the Cold War (2006) (withGeoffrey Elliott)
• War or Revolution: Russian Jews and Conscription in Britain, 1917 (2006)
• Volkogonov, Dmitri (1994).Lenin: A New Biography. Translated byShukman, Harold. London: HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-00-255123-6.

• Full text of doctoral thesis, "The relations between the Jewish Bund and the RSDRP, 1897-1903" via the Oxford Research Archive