The heart of the book is the story of the Great Terror that struck the scientific establishment in the 1930s.
The heart of the book is the story of the Great Terror that struck the scientific establishment in the 1930s. Ings shows that scientists now depended for resources and promotion (but also for physical survival) on the power of patrons such as top leaders like Andrei Zhdanov, or the greatest patron of all, Stalin. He describes the rise of the maliciously cunning but childlike Trofim Lysenko, who notoriously became Stalin’s favorite scientist (though they met only once or twice). As starvation spread in the wake of Stalin’s collectivization, particularly in 1932-33, Lysenko, a semi-educated charlatan, attacked well-known geneticists who were trying to develop new hybrid crops that could solve the problem of low productivity, much of it caused by Stalin’s brutal policies. Fueled by what Ings calls “a huckster’s monomania,” Lysenko claimed he could raise crop yields by his own process, called vernalization, in which artificially induced coldness could fool winter wheat to develop earlier in the spring. Later he applied his theories to cattle breeding. Many of Lysenko’s views were either preposterous or simply irrelevant, and Ings includes a great scene when Western delegates to a conference in the Soviet Union burst into hysterics after hearing Lysenko’s sophomoric theories on how sexual reproduction was a mixture of cells eating one another and belching. One of his colleagues, Nikolai Koltsov, joked: “He says that by feeding one can turn a cockroach into a horse.”
Yet Lysenko’s simple solutions and eager promises appealed to Stalin, who loved gardening and was obsessed with growing lemons in his greenhouses at his dacha near Moscow. When challenged by the esteemed geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, Lysenko responded viciously, denying the existence of genes. Vavilov rushed to appeal to Stalin, who received him but sneered, “You are the Vavilov who fiddles with flowers, leaves, grafts and other botanical nonsense instead of helping agriculture, as is done by Academician Lysenko.” Vavilov was arrested in 1940. The world-famous scientist died in prison in 1943.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/books/review/stalin-and-the-scientists-simon-ings.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-3&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region
Yet Lysenko’s simple solutions and eager promises appealed to Stalin, who loved gardening and was obsessed with growing lemons in his greenhouses at his dacha near Moscow. When challenged by the esteemed geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, Lysenko responded viciously, denying the existence of genes. Vavilov rushed to appeal to Stalin, who received him but sneered, “You are the Vavilov who fiddles with flowers, leaves, grafts and other botanical nonsense instead of helping agriculture, as is done by Academician Lysenko.” Vavilov was arrested in 1940. The world-famous scientist died in prison in 1943.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/books/review/stalin-and-the-scientists-simon-ings.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-3&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region
It is important to recognize that it was work on plant physiology that established Lysenko as a scientist, and started him off on his meteoric career. The discovery of vernalization was his starting point as well as a constant source of scientific credit. He found that some plants needed a period of low temperature to develop normally to the flowering stage. On this basis he worked out a practical method to speed up development in wheat for which he became famous.
ReplyDeleteWhen Lysenko moved into plant breeding and genetics he immediately met strong criticism from specialists. It was by forcing his genetic theories upon the scientific community with backing from the political leadership that Lysenko became notorious. While his work on vernalization got a positive, though not uncritical, reception, his work in genetics was soon widely rejected as unscientific.