History of Soviet Genetics
[Adapted from
Andrei Igamberdiev on Soviet Genetics, 06 Nov 2018: Totalitarianism
and Freedom]
Application of Marxist-Leninist Dialectical
Materialism system to Science
Benefits: Soviet system provided education to broad masses for first time
Rapid industrialization, improvements in agriculture
Downside: Cult
of Personality take hold, State does not 'wither away'
VI
Lenin (d 1924) mausoleum based on Ziggurat of
Babylon
Stalinist
architecture in Soviet "Wedding Cake"
style
Post-Revolution (1917)
People go to city to be educated
Competition with West [note Thomas, Julian, &
Aldous Huxley] {British SciFi
pessimistic}
Brave New World;
Chrome Yellow; Doors of Perception
Biology in Soviet Union, 1920s
Modernism promotes Science
1924 -1929: First Five-Year Plan of New Economic
Policy (NEP)
History as progress (dialectical materialism):
from simpler to complex, also applies to Society
Marxism
respected in West (especially Europe)
JV
Stalin becomes General Secretary (1922): Yezhov
Terror, 1936 - 38
Prominent Soviet geneticists
IA Rappaport opposed Lysenko, spoiled 1948
sessions
Chemical mutagenesis; nominated for Nobel in 1960s w/ C
Auerbach;
Fought Fascism "empirically" in WWII
1926:
Population genetics as basis of evolutionary theory;
arrested, side-lined
GD
Karpechenko
(Kar-PECH-en ko) bred
inter-generic hybrid (Raphanobrassica);
killed 1941
NV Timofeev-Ressovsky - Radiation Genetics
Worked at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Berlin (pre-war,
Nazi period)
Arrested 1945, worked in Gulag (cf.
Solzhenitsyn's "First
Circle")
Concept of cytoskeleton (1903)
1927: proposed "giant hereditary molecule" with
"two mirror strands that would
replicate in a semi-conservative fashion using each strand as
a template"
Advocate of eugenics 1920s
Arrested 1920, save by Maxim Gorky; killed by NKVD
1940
plant
biogeography; most prominent Soviet geneticist
Brother SI
Vavilov became President of Soviet Academy
post-war
supervised Cherenkov (Physics Nobel, 1958)
Margaret
Newton Canadian phyto-pathologist
invited
to Soviet Union (three months)
HJ Muller worked in Soviet
Union on genetics, 1933-38 (Nobel, 1946)
Neolithic revolution
in seven
Centers of Origin:
Mesopotamia, India subcontinent, Ethiopia, China, Egypt, S
America
cf. E Mayr argues for most variation
at center of origin
IV Michurin (Mi-CHUR-in)
Peasant plant breeder: ideal "type"of Soviet
contributor to Science
Luther Burbank in US has parallel career
TD Lysenko (Lye-SYEN-ka)
agronomist rather than scientist
Promoted by II
Prezent in ideological
terms
Vernalization
freezing "Winter"
wheat allows growth as "Spring" (Vernal) wheat
phenomenon well-known: Lysenko claimed permanent transformation
Resurrected Inheritance
of acquired characteristics
Accumulated power in Soviet agriculture, advisor to
Stalin
Suggested life could originate by spontaneous
generation
Weird pseudo-science, protege of Stalin
Climax: All-Union Meeting of August 7th, 1948
"The Central Committee of the Party examined my report
and approved it."
Genetics outlawed by decree
Aftermath: Dominated Soviet Biology through fall of
Khrushchev (1964)
Massive crop failures in Soviet Union,
China (1959)
Replaced Lysenko as authentic geneticist; monopolized
field after Lysenko
Claimed proletarian background; probably son of White
Army officer
Why confined to
Biology? Soviet Fission bomb project protected Soviet
physicists
L
Beria (Head of NKVD): "Task No. 1", "Bomb
first, we'll get them later."
See:
ZA Medvedev
(1969). The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko
(translated by I. M. Lerner). Columbia.
2020: Note
current situation under Putin: state support of science
devalued by political developments
© 2022 by Steven M Carr, after Andrei Igamberdiev, 2018