Lysenkoism

Lysenkoism is a term used by geneticists and historians to describe the pseudoscientific practices of Russian horticulturist Trofim Denisovich Lysenko [1898-1976] in the totalitarian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the first half of the 20^th century. In rejecting the advancements of modern genetics, the influence of Lysenko and Lysenkoism adversely affected many areas of science, especially research in agricultural genetics. Although historical scholars debate the extent of the blame Lysenkoism deserves for decreased agricultural production, increased famine, and other deprivations for Soviet citizens, Lysenkoism retarded the advancement of modern genetics and resulted in the repression and persecution of Soviet scientists.

In 1927, less than ten years after the 1917 Revolution within in the old Czarist Russian Empire that led to the formation of the Soviet Union, Lysenko observed that pea seeds germinated faster when the seeds were maintained at low temperatures. Lysenko mistakenly concluded that the low temperature forced an alteration in seed species. In fact, what was occurring was simply the result of the natural variation in the ability of seeds to grow and thrive in colder temperatures.

Lysenko's conclusions were based upon the teachings of Russian horticulturist I. V. Michurin (1855-1935), who was a proponent of the widely discredited Larmarckian theory that organisms evolved through the acquisition of traits that best adapted them to their environments (evolution by acquired characteristics). During the 19^th century, French anatomist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) had attempted to explain why giraffes had long necks. Lamarck had reasoned that a giraffe, by exercising its neck muscles (e.g., during the act of stretching to get leaves), acquired the ability to pass on morphological changes to their offspring.

Lamarck's theory of evolution by acquired characteristics was, however, incorrect. Individual traits are, for the most part, determined by an inherited code contained in the DNA of each cell and are not affected by use or disuse. In contrast, Darwinian natural selection accurately explains the long necks of the giraffe as a physical adaptation that enabled a greater exploitation of a readily available food supply. The increased availability of a food supply resulted in enhanced reproductive success carriers of genes that allowed the development of long necks.

Despite the fact the theory of evolution by acquired characteristics was widely discarded as pseudoscience (science based upon false premises or theories), the political patronage and terror under Soviet dictator Joseph Statlin allowed Lysenko to implement a series of "politically correct" agricultural plans that, although in tune with communist ideology, drastically reduced Soviet crop production.

Lysenko advanced an erroneous but elaborate theory of phasic development. According to phasic theory, seeds could be hardened by treating them with heat and high humidity as a method to increase their ability to germinate under harsh conditions. The need to grow crops under extreme conditions was made more urgent by the Second World War. Winter wheat, the principal Russian crop, was principally grown in the Ukraine and Hitler's Nazi invasion deprived the Soviet state of much of its rich and climatically favorable land.

Despite the failure of Lysenko's agricultural genetics programs, Lysenko found favor with Stalin and the Central Committee that ruled the Soviet state. In 1940, Stalin appointed Lysenko Director of the Soviet Academy of Science's Institute of Genetics. Although experiments carried out by geneticists around the world failed to provide evidence in support of Lysenko change (transmutation) of species hypothesis, by 1948 the Praesidium of the USSR Academy of Science passed a resolution virtually outlawing any biological work that was not based on Lysenko's ideas. Not until after the death of Stalin in 1953 did the Soviet government acknowledge that Soviet agriculture had failed to meet its goals.

Lysenko's heavy-handed political influence also adversely affected generations of Soviet scientists. The achievements of Czarist Russia in science rivaled those of Europe and America. Before the death of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leaders in the early Soviet State sought to maintain a tradition of scientific achievement. In the wake of Lenin's death, the rise of Stalin increasingly mingled political ideology and science. For example, Lysenko's idea that all organisms were not genetically constrained (i.e., given the proper conditions, they have the capacity to be or do anything) had alluring parallels with the social philosophies of Karl Marx that promoted the idea that man was largely a product of his own will. Enamored with the "political correctness" of Lysenko's ideas, Stalin attacked modern geneticists and genetics as bourgeois and in opposition to the ideals of the Russian revolution (counter-revolutionary). While the outside scientific world used modern genetics to better understand biological processes, Stalin's Soviet scientists suppressed rational scientific inquiry. In a very real sense, under Stalin, science in the Soviet Union was forced to serve the needs political ideology and propaganda.

Important developments in genetics and science in general were terminated by state terror. During the 1930s and 1940s, scientists were routinely executed, imprisoned, or exiled and many scientists were forced to work in specially-built labor camps, where they were forced to continue their work in total isolation. At Lysenko's direction, hybrid corn programs based on successful U.S. models were stopped, the research facilities destroyed, because Lysenko philosophically opposed "inbreeding."

Under Stalin and Lysenko, information on genetics was eliminated from Soviet biology textbooks and the entire agricultural research program of the Soviet Union was devoted to a disproved scientific hypothesis. Some Soviet scientists were even forced to deny the existence of existence of chromosomes. The concept of genes was denounced as a false bourgeois illusion. Under Lysenko, Mendelian genetics was branded "decadent." Scientists that who rejected Lamarckism in favor of evolution by natural selection became "enemies of the Soviet people." There were many arrests of geneticists and, in fear of their lives, many Soviet scientists cowered. Some presented fraudulent data to support Lysenko, others destroyed evidence that showed he was wrong. It was not uncommon to read the public letters of scientists who had once advanced Mendelian genetics in which they confessed the errors of their ways and the praised the wisdom of Lysenko's pseudoscientific methods.

At great risk to themselves, some scientists resisted Lysenkoism. During the late 1930s Soviet geneticist Nikolay Ivanovich Vavilov, (1887-1943) attempted to expose the pseudo-scientific concepts of Lysenko. As a result, Vavilov was arrested in August 1940 and sent to a prison camp where he later died.

Following Stalin's death, opposition to Lysenko began to grow. The successor to Stalin, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) eventually stated that under Lysenko "Soviet agricultural research spent over 30 years in darkness." Lysenko's system of crop rotation also resulted in massive soil depletion that required years of repair with fertilizers. In 1964, Lysenko's doctrines were discredited, and efforts were made toward the reestablishing Mendelian genetics and bringing Soviet agricultural, biological and genetic science back into conformity with modern science.