The Fall of a Geneticist

One of the strangest dramas in the history of science came to an end last week. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, dictator of Soviet geneticists and symbol of Stalin's attitude toward science, was kicked out of the presidency of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

During the first decade after the Russian revolution. Soviet genetics enjoyed a golden age. Lenin recognized clearly that genetics is no theory; it is a well-proved science whose techniques are enormously superior to the hit-or-miss methods used by pre-genetic plant-and-animal breeders. Russia needed more food, so Lenin gave Soviet geneticists (led by world-famed Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov) almost unlimited support. Genetics laboratories were established in palaces of fallen aristocrats. Vavilov sent expeditions all over the world to collect crop plants for hybridizing by methods approved by the world's scientific plant breeders. The effort paid off well: many useful varieties were developed to fit Russia's diverse climates and soils.

Remarkable Discovery. The outside world first heard of Lysenko in 1932, when a big Soviet delegation headed by Vavilov was scheduled to attend the Sixth Inter national Congress of Genetics at Ithaca, N.Y. Vavilov showed up alone and delivered a strange speech telling of "a remarkable discovery recently made by T. D. Lysenko of Odessa." The discovery was "vernalization," a method of refrigerating the seeds of wheat varieties that are normally planted in autumn to make them produce a crop if planted in spring. To call vernalization "a remarkable discovery" did not sound like Vavilov, who must have known that the refrigeration technique was used in the U.S. before the Civil War. Lysenko's additional claim, that this treatment turns winter wheat permanently and hereditarily into spring wheat, must have offended Vavilov deeply. The claim violated a basic principle of genetics: that the hereditary characteristics of a plant or animal are not affected by anything that happens to it during its lifetime. Winter wheat can be tricked into behaving like spring wheat, but its seeds invariably revert to the old habit.

The non-Russian geneticists at Ithaca wondered politely what had happened to the much-respected Vavilov. They could not have guessed what would soon happen to him, and to the vital agricultural sciences of the world's biggest country. The unknown Lysenko, who turned out to be a half-educated plant physiologist, rose from honor to honor. In spite of his abject behavior at Ithaca, Vavilov rapidly lost influence and was dismissed from his official Soviet posts. In 1940 he was arrested while on a field trip and sent to a small Siberian village, where he died a few years later. At least 50 other Russian geneticists disappeared.

Not According to Marx. Lysenko's power came from his influence with Stalin, and outsiders could only speculate about the appeal he had for the Soviet dictator. Stalin may have been attracted by Lysenko's claim that he could develop new crop varieties in a single growing season. There may have been something deeper: hatred for conventional genetics because it does not directly support Marxist dogma about human equality and perfectibility.

Whatever Stalin's reasons, he permitted Lysenko to establish his naive and bungling doctrines as an officially supported cult. Critics were punished or silenced.

Genetics was treated to the full fury of Communist polemics. It was denounced as "capitalist-reactionary" and as "the prop of the ideology of imperialism." To say a good word for a gene or a chromosome might cost a Soviet scientist his job or even his life. Nothing like this massive attack upon the observed and provable truth had happened in a major country since the persecution of Galileo for insisting that the earth revolves around the sun.

Spreading Blight. The effect of Lysenkoism on Soviet agriculture was disastrous. While other countries were using genetics to improve their crop yields mightily, the Soviet Union fell behind. None of Lysenko's alleged achievements ever proved practical. Most of his startling, experimental "results," never described in full detail, appear to have been caused by sloppy procedure. Western experts could never repeat his experiments and make them come out the way he said they did.

Lysenko's malign influence extended beyond genetics into other phases of Soviet agriculture. He was largely responsible for a costly and disastrous experiment with forest-belt planting. His notions about crop rotation cost the country in one season as much grain as would have been produced by 6,000,000 acres. He refused to introduce hybrid corn, the most spectacular practical achievement of Western plant genetics. The blight of Lysenkoism even touched far-distant sciences, including chemistry and physics, where Marxist dogmatists denounced useful and well-proved principles as tainted with Western error.

Lysenko slipped fast after the death of Stalin. His critics began speaking up, and got away with it. Early in 1954 one of his proteges was denounced in Pravda itself. Genetics of true scientific type began to be taught and used again. When Soviet agriculturists visited the U.S. last summer, they were enormously impressed by hybrid corn and ordered carloads of seed.

Lysenko has not been shot, imprisoned or even sent to die in Siberia like his old rival Vavilov. He keeps his three Stalin prizes and his six Orders of Lenin, besides many of his honorary posts. But he knows what has happened to him. When interviewed by a Western newsman, he said with dignity: "I shall concentrate now on my scientific work."

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