Trofim Lysenko

• 1. A Peasant's Late Start

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  Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was born on the 29th of September 1898 in the village of Karlovka. His family belonged to a peasant class within the Poltava Governorate of Ukraine. He did not learn to read or write until he reached the age of thirteen. This late literacy marked his early years before any formal scientific training began. The Russian Civil War raged around him during these formative years. Austro-Hungarian troops captured Uman while Soviet power briefly took hold there again. These chaotic events shaped the environment where he would eventually study horticulture. He entered the lower school of horticulture in Poltava in 1913 after finishing rural schooling. By 1921 he had graduated from the secondary school of horticulture located in Uman. His education coincided with periods when the city changed hands between Red and White Armies. In 1922 he enrolled at the Kiev Agricultural Institute which later became the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. During his studies he worked as a garden plant breeder at the Belotserkovsk experimental station. He published his first scientific works in 1923 titled Techniques and methods of tomato selection at the Belotserkovskaya selection station. Another early publication covered grafting sugar beets. He received an agronomy degree from the institute in 1925.

• 2. The Vernalization Claim

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  In October 1925 Lysenko moved to Azerbaijan to work at a breeding station in Ganja. Nikolai Vavilov headed the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops that employed him. The director of the station was Nikolai Derevitsky who specialized in mathematical statistics for agronomy. Derevitsky tasked Lysenko with introducing legume crops like lupine clover peavine and vetch into Azerbaijan. These plants could solve livestock starvation during early spring months. They also increased soil fertility when plowed under in spring. Lysenko attempted to convert winter wheat into spring wheat by treating seeds with moisture and cold. This process induced them to bear crops when planted in spring. He coined the term Jarovization to describe this chilling method. Farmers had known about this technique since the 1800s. Gustav Gassner discussed it in detail back in 1918. Lysenko translated Jarovization as vernalization from the Latin word vernum meaning Spring. His claims for increased yields relied on plantings covering only a few hectares. He believed the transformation could be inherited by offspring. This meant future generations would withstand harsh winters or imperfect weather conditions. Pravda praised his success in turning barren fields green in winter. A correspondent named Vitaly Fedorovich described how cattle would not perish from poor feeding. Peasants in Transcaucasus regions lived through winter without trembling for tomorrow.

• 3. The Vavilov Arrest

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  In mid-1940 NKVD employee S.N. Shundenko became deputy director of the All-Union Research Institute of Plant Industry. Nikolai Vavilov wrote categorical protests against this appointment. Vavilov was arrested in August 1940 following these objections. His employees and friends Georgii Karpechenko Grigory Levitsky and others were also arrested. They died while held in custody. The Soviet Union had arguably the best genetics community before the 1930s. Lysenko gutted that community according to writer Sam Kean. Some accounts suggest Russian biology and agronomy were set back half a century. Several geneticists who refused to denounce Lysenko's theories were executed. Izrail Agol Solomon Levit Grigorii Levitskii Georgii Karpechenko and Georgii Nadson all lost their lives. One prominent critic Nikolai Vavilov died in prison in 1943. Scientists like Peter Gluckman noted that Lysenko wrecked many lives. He destroyed the reputation of Russian biology before his work was recognized as fraudulent. The suppression began in earnest during the spring of 1937 after Stalin's report on party shortcomings. Lysenko and supporters including Isaak Prezent and Alexander Kohl accused geneticists of colluding with anti-Stalinist opposition.

• 4. The Science Of Pseudoscience

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  Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetic inheritance theory in favor of his own logic called Michurinist genetics. He believed Gregor Mendel's theory was too reactionary or idealist. His ideas mixed concepts from Russian agronomist Ivan Michurin and other Soviet scientists. This mixture formed what became known as the Michurinist doctrine. Body cells determined the quality of an organism's offspring under this system. Every part of the body contributed to germ cells similar to Darwin's pangenesis theory. Lysenko denied any such connection existed though. These ideas did not derive directly from established biological theories like Lamarckism or Darwinism. They shaped simple practical purposes for breeding and improving crops instead. He claimed plants were self-sacrificing so healthy ones could live when others died. Dead plants deposited themselves over growing roots to help new generations survive. He argued there is mutual assistance among individuals within a species. Mutual assistance also exists between different species according to him. Another theory stated obtaining more milk from cows depended on treatment rather than genetics. Better handling produced more milk while genetics played no role. He claimed cuckoos were born when young birds like warblers fed hairy caterpillars to parent birds. This failed to recognize brood parasites involved. Fertilization was not random but featured specific selection of mates. Scientists considered these beliefs pseudo-scientific with little relationship to actual genetics.

• 5. Famine And The Human Cost

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  Lysenko forced farmers to plant seeds very close together based on his law of life of species. Plants from the same class never competed with one another in his view. His practices prolonged and exacerbated food shortages across the Soviet Union. Millions of people died due to famines connected to his agricultural methods. The People's Republic of China adopted his methods starting in 1958 under Mao Zedong. Calamitous results followed this adoption contributing to the Great Chinese Famine of 1959 to 1962. Some estimates place deaths between fifteen million and fifty-five million during that period. Summer planting of potatoes caused huge crop losses despite Lysenko's claims. Burying harvested tubers in trenches led to rotting intensifying significantly. Potato viruses like PLRV PVX and PVY caused degeneration ignored by Lysenko. Ignoring viral roles delayed detection methods for decades. Sharp drops in potato yields resulted from spreading viruses throughout regions. Sowing over stover protected winter crops from frost but clogged fields with weeds. Lack of herbicides meant surface plowing was excluded provoking weed germination. Tsitsin noted low grain yield in stubble crops in a letter dated the 2nd of February 1948. He considered work on stover unpromising compared to other methods.

• 6. The Fall From Power

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  In 1955 an attempt disempowered Lysenko via a letter signed by more than three hundred scientists. Nikita Khrushchev received this Letter of Three Hundred which led to temporary resignation. He returned to power through Khrushchev's efforts shortly after. Influence declined after Stalin died in 1953 though he retained his post at the Institute of Genetics until 1965. Mainstream scientists re-emerged finding new willingness within Soviet government leadership to tolerate criticism. This marked the first opportunity since late 1920s for such dissent. In 1962 physicists Yakov Zeldovich Vitaly Ginzburg and Pyotr Kapitsa presented cases against him. They proclaimed his work pseudoscience and denounced political silencing of opposition. Andrei Sakharov spoke out against Lysenko in the General Assembly of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR during 1964. The Soviet press filled with anti-Lysenkoite articles appealing for restoration of scientific methods. In 1965 Lysenko was removed from directorship of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences. He faced restriction to an experimental farm in Moscow's Lenin Hills. An expert commission investigated records kept at that farm revealing secretive methods. A devastating critique became public months later causing immediate disgrace. His immunity to criticism officially ended following Khrushchev's dismissal in 1964. Lysenko died in Moscow on the 20th of November 1976.