"From the Modern Synthesis to Lysenkoism, and Back? Portraits Of Science"

Journal article

By: Uwe Hossfeld and Lennart Olsson

Date: July 5, 2002

Source: Hossfeld, Uwe, and Lennart Olsson. "Portraits of Science: From the Modern Synthesis to Lysenkoism, and Back?" Science 297 ( July 5, 2002) 55-56.

About the Author: Uwe Hossfeld and Lennart Olsson are both professors at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat in Jena, Germany. Hossfeld is in the Department of History of Medicine, Science, and Technology. Lennart is in the Department of Systematic Zoology and Evolutionary Biology.

INTRODUCTION

During the Soviet era, the Communist party extensively controlled the manner in which scientific research was carried out. This was most notable in the biological sciences, as modern thinking and widely accepted research methods were exchanged for Lysenkoism, a non-traditional approach to genetic studies that had little backing by scientific evidence or theories. Although Lysenkoism originated in the Soviet Union, countries throughout the Soviet Bloc, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, implemented its practices. Scientific cooperation between the Soviet Union and China led to the appearance of Lysenkoism at three Chinese institutions in 1949.

Leaders of the Soviet Union institutionalized Lysenkoism in the 1920s, as Trofin Lysenko promised new varieties of food crops, improved harvests, and unlimited supplies of milk and meat. At the time, famine was taking hold in places like the Ukraine, and Lysenkoism was to be the answer for the Soviet collectivized and state-owned farms, which were struggling to keep up with the demands for food. Many of the promises of Lysenkoism failed to reach fruition. However, the approach remained the primary mode of agricultural and biological research in the Soviet Union until the later part of the twentieth century.

One influential scientist in East Germany was Georg Schneider. He was supported by the Communist leadership for promoting the Lysenkoism approach, as it was the same approach the Soviets were using. Schneider had received his educational training in Moscow, while in exile from Germany. He claimed there were deficiencies in the Darwinian approach to biology and maintained his position even when an important book against Lysenkoism was published in East Germany.

Lysenko's ideas began following his work manipulating the germination of winter wheat plants to make them more efficient. He exposed the seeds to varying humidity and temperature levels in order to have them germinate in the spring. Although Lysenko claimed he had discovered something new, the process, called vernalization, was discovered earlier by both Russian and American researchers. Lysenko used his work to promote an idea from an earlier agronomist, Ivan Michurin, who suggested an organism's genetic structure could be changed through the controlling of external factors. Lysenko argued that the generally accepted Mendelian-based genetic knowledge was false, claiming that once a seed was manipulated to germinate in the spring, further generations of that wheat plant would germinate in the springtime automatically with a new genetic disposition. He predicted that improved varieties of seeds could be developed in two to three years, as opposed to the normal eight to ten years it took for the cross breeding of plants.

Many of Lysenko's theories had little scientific backing, with many ideas backed by unverified data from surveys distributed to farms throughout the Soviet Union. Lysenko himself is thought to have had a questionable scientific background. In 1925, Lysenko did receive an agronomy certificate at the Kiev Agricultural Institute. He pursued higher-level degrees, but had some academic deficiencies and was unable to complete a dissertation for a master's or doctoral degree. Lysenko also never took the standard scientific examinations for his field of studies.

PRIMARY SOURCE

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SIGNIFICANCE

It is thought that Lysenko's ideas fit Joseph Stalin's collectivization mindset for agriculture in the Soviet Union, and this is what helped his career advance quickly, earning him high-level positions despite his questionable education. Lysenko was a full academician at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was also the director of several breeding and genetic institutes in the Soviet Union. For over twenty-five years, Lysenko controlled the decisions made by many governmental agencies dealing with agriculture, biology, and medicine. He won many awards, including the coveted Stalin Prize, and was an eight-time recipient of the country's highest honor, the Order of Lenin.

Throughout the Soviet Union, those scientists who were against Lysenkoism were forced from their positions, persecuted, and generally silenced. In East Germany, some scientists who were resistant to the Lysenkoism approach were able to move to West Germany, where a strong voice against Lysenkoism was maintained.

Although Lysenkoism was a Soviet era approach, it is reported that similar anti-science movements were developing in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the western world as well. Although these were not necessarily backed by western governments, some people were disenchanted with science, believing that it had become detached from society, and was overly mechanistic. Since the fall of Communism, there has been a strong movement of anti-science and anti-technology in Russia.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Schneider, Laurence. Biology and Revolution in Twentieth-Century China. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Soyfer, Valerie N., Leo Gruliow, and Rebecca Gruliow. Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994.

Periodicals

Dombrowski, Paul M. "Plastic Language for Plastic Science: The Rhetoric of Comrade Lysenko." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 31, no. 3 (2001): 293-333.