The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko

xvii, [3], 284 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Index of Names. Name in ink inside front cover. DJ worn, torn, chipped and is partially price clipped. The final Russian text, which provided the basis for the present translation, resulted from numerous revisions by the author, and has been approved by him as represent his views. He did not see the translated, abridged, and edited manuscript before publication. This is the story of Soviet genetics in the period 1937-1964. This book consists of three parts. The first two were written in 1961-1962 and augmented in 1963-1964; the third was written in 1966-1967. Each part, for various reasons, differs from the others in style and method of analysis of the facts. Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev (14 November 1925 15 November 2018) was a Russian agronomist, biologist, historian and dissident. In 1962, Medvedev wrote his book on the history of Soviet genetics, which passed an editorial review but was withheld by state censors. It was later published in the United States in 1969 as The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko. Medvedev was dismissed from his position in 1969. Between 1968 and 1970, Medvedev wrote two more books: International Cooperation of Scientists and National Frontiers [5] and Secrecy of Correspondence is Guaranteed by Law (about postal censorship in the USSR). These works were widely circulated in the USSR, along with his history of Soviet genetics (which had been published in Grani, a Russian journal published outside the USSR), and this activity resulted in Medvedev's arrest and forced detention in a psychiatric hospital in May 1970. The first detailed, inside account of Soviet genetics in the period 1937-1964 -- perhaps the most bizarre chapter in the history of modern science. In a society devoted to the betterment of the lot of peasants and workers, an illiterate and fanatical charlatan, T. D. Lysenko, was allowed by Stalin absolute control over both research in biology and practical agriculture. Lysenko's belief that environment was everything and heredity was next to nothing not only stifled the development of science, but also had a far-reaching and destructive influence on the national economy of the Soviet Union. This volume is a translation of the Russian written by Zhores Medvedev and smuggled out of Russia on microfilm. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (29 September [O.S. 17 September] 1898 20 November 1976) was a Soviet agronomist and pseudo-scientist. He was a strong proponent of Lamarckism, and rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of his own idiosyncratic, pseudoscientific ideas later termed Lysenkoism. In 1940, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR's Academy of Sciences, and he used his political influence and power to suppress dissenting opinions and discredit, marginalize, and imprison his critics, elevating his anti-Mendelian theories to state-sanctioned doctrine. Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics were dismissed from their posts and left destitute. Hundreds if not thousands of others were imprisoned. Several were sentenced to death as enemies of the state, including the botanist Nikolai Vavilov. Lysenko's ideas and practices contributed to the famines that killed millions of Soviet people; the adoption of his methods from 1958 in the People's Republic of China had similarly calamitous results, culminating in the Great Chinese Famine of 1959 to 1962. Lysenko's success at encouraging farmers to return to working their lands impressed Stalin, who also approved of Lysenko's peasant background, as Stalin claimed to stand with the proletariat. By the late 1920s, the USSR's leaders had given their support to Lysenko. This support was a consequence, in part, of policies put in place by the Communist Party to rapidly promote members of the proletariat into leadership positions in agriculture, science and industry. Party officials were looking for promising candidates with backgrounds similar to Lysenko's: born of a peasant f.…