Entity | Merle Fainsod

Merle Fainsod (May 2, 1907 – February 11, 1972) was an American political scientist best known for his work on public administration and as a scholar of the Soviet Union. His books Smolensk under Soviet Rule, based on documents captured by the German Army during World War II, and How Russia is Ruled (also known as How the Soviet Union is Governed) helped form the basis of American study of the Soviet Union, and established him "as a leading political scientist of the Soviet Union." Fainsod is also remembered for his work in the Office of Price Administration and as the director of the Harvard University Library. Fainsod was born in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania on May 2, 1907, and spent his childhood years there. In 1920, after the death of his father, Fainsod's family moved to St. Louis. Fainsod attended Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 1928 with a B.A. in political science and an M.A. in 1930. He then began his Ph.D at Harvard University in government, completing it in only 2 years.