During the early 20th century, Trofim Lysenko was perhaps the most influential scientist within the Soviet Union. He steered Soviet biology and agriculture through the 20th century, and today he is remembered as a figure known for his controversial and dangerous theories. With the help of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Lysenko was able to implement his unconventional agricultural theories throughout the Soviet Union. However, Lysenko’s controversial theories had severe consequences for Soviet agriculture, leading to widespread famine, poor harvests, and crop failures.
Trofim Lysenko: Early Life and Studies
Trofim Lysenko was born on September 29, 1898, in Poltava to a family of Ukrainian peasant farmers. Due to his poor upbringing, Lysenko did not learn to read or write until he was almost thirteen years old. After completing his two-year rural school education in 1913, he enrolled in the Poltava School of Horticulture. By 1917, he had graduated from Poltava and went on to study at the secondary horticultural school in the town of Uman, where he completed his studies in 1921.
During his time in Uman, Lysenko lived through the chaos of the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Russian Civil War. Despite these tumultuous events, Lysenko continued his studies and in 1922 he was accepted by the Kyiv Agricultural Institute. While still a student, he worked at the Belotserkovsky experimental station as a plant breeder and wrote his first scientific articles, “Techniques and Methods of Tomato Selection at the Belotserkovskaya Selection Station” and “Grafting of Sugar Beets,” that would form the foundation for his later controversial theories. Lysenko graduated from the Kyiv Institute with a degree in agronomy in 1925.
Lysenko’s Early Work, Theories, and Rise to Prominence
After graduating from Kyiv, Lysenko found work as a botanist in the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan where, under the direction of Nikolai Vavilov, he was given the task of introducing legumes into the country’s agriculture. The aim of this initiative was twofold, first to prevent livestock starvation during the sparse growing season in the early spring and second to increase overall soil fertility.
Despite the immense difficulties he faced in growing various crops like peas and wheat during the harsh winter, Lysenko announced his success to the Soviet scientific community. He claimed to have discovered a new method of propagating seeds that would allow a winter crop of peas to be grown in the frigid cold of Azerbaijan. This achievement was praised in the Soviet newspaper Pravda which lauded Lysenko’s work and claimed that he had discovered a way of “turning the barren fields of the Transcaucasus green in winter, so that cattle will not perish from poor feeding, and the peasant Turk will live through the winter without trembling for tomorrow.”
Lysenko Develops His Own Theory of Vernalization
The process of vernalization had existed long before Lysenko’s theories. In botany, vernalization is the stimulation of a plant’s growing process by exposing seedlings to cold winter weather, either by natural or artificial means. Only after vernalization has taken place will some plants acquire the ability to flower. In agriculture, farmers have observed for generations a clear difference between “winter cereals,” crops with seeds that require cold, and “spring cereals,” crops that can be sown in spring and harvested soon after.
Lysenko took what he had learned in Azerbaijan and began researching his own theories of vernalization to convert winter wheat into spring wheat. In 1928 he published a paper on vernalization, drawing widespread attention with his claim to have found a way to convert winter crops into spring ones.
However, Lysenko’s claims for increased yields were based on plantings over a few hectares. He believed that the vernalized transformation could be inherited, asserting that the offspring of a vernalized plant would possess the same capabilities as the preceding generation, enabling them to withstand harsh winters or imperfect weather conditions. This would prove a fatal flaw in Lysenko’s plans, as such a process would be impossible for plants to inherit under the basic laws of genetics.
In the Soviet Union, the commonly held Darwinist theory that genetic mutations over time stimulate the development and evolution of organisms was widely disputed. In the Soviet Union, the Marxist-Leninist practice of genetics claimed that a unifying struggle for survival (in parallel to the class struggle among humanity) triggered genetic evolution. Genetics was rejected by Lysenko himself whose theory was supported by the doctrine of the Soviet Union.
Lysenko and Stalin
Lysenko’s experimental research soon gained the attention of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who had long been faced with the problems of famine and loss of productivity as a result of widespread crop failures linked to forced collectivization in several regions of the Soviet Union.
Lysenko’s efforts led to an invitation from the Breeding and Genetics Institute in Odesa, where he managed the vernalization lab with strong backing from Alexander Schlichter, the Ukrainian SSR’s People’s Commissar of Agriculture.
In 1936, Lysenko was awarded the Order of Lenin and appointed director of the Soviet Breeding and Genetics Institute. Soviet scientists began to take note of Lysenko’s work on vernalization, and in 1934, he was elected to the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences. As Lysenko’s influence grew, he clashed with geneticists who questioned the viability of his theories, and slowly these debates soon turned into political conflicts. In 1938, Lysenko was elected president of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences where he furthered his research supporting spring cultivation strategies, and reported significant increases in millet yields.
Rise of Lysenkoism
By 1928, Lysenko declared that he had perfected his method of vernalization to boost crop yields. However, in truth, he had distorted scientific data to show that his method of exposing wheat seeds to moisture and cold could change one species into another.
Lysenko’s critics argued that his data was not based on an understanding of genetics. In response Lysenko rejected the concept of genes as a so-called bourgeois invention and proposed a new discipline of Marxist genetics that would emphasize environmental influences on organisms. He ignored the spontaneous mutations theory that Darwin proposed, declaring that, “science is the enemy of randomness.”
With the support of Joseph Stalin, Lysenko transformed his scientific theories into a political movement known as “Lysenkoism,” which opposed science-based agriculture and genetics. Lysenkoism rejected natural selection in favor of Lysenko’s own theories and techniques like grafting and vernalization. In the name of Lysenkoism over 3,000 traditional biologists were dismissed, imprisoned, or executed during Stalin’s great purge. This loss of talented minds severely impacted Soviet genetics research and other biological fields. Perhaps the most notable victim of Lysenkoism was Lysenko’s former mentor, Nikolai Vavilov, who was imprisoned and died in captivity.
Lysenkoism Spreads
By 1948 Lysenko’s dominance over Soviet agriculture was complete, and genetics was officially labeled a bourgeois pseudoscience. Under Lysenko’s supervision, nearly 3,000 Soviet biologists were executed, and all research into genetics was halted in the Soviet Union until Stalin’s death in 1953. Supporters of Lysenkoism were spared execution and benefited politically from their stance. Some even defended it even after its decline in 1955. Other branches of Soviet science briefly attempted similar initiatives but with less success. By 1952, criticism of Lysenkoism began to emerge, and by the mid-1960s, normal genetics research gradually resumed.
The wave of Lysenkoism that spread across the Soviet Union was accompanied by an even deadlier wave of purges orchestrated by Stalin himself. To question Lysenko and his theories became political suicide.
Lysenkoism wasn’t limited to the Soviet Union. As leader of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lysenko encouraged the adoption of his theories in Communist Bloc nations like China, East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
The End of Lysenkoism
The death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 marked the beginning of the end of Trofim Lysenko’s reign of terror over Soviet science. With the Krushchev era in the Soviet Union coming to an end by the 1960s, Lysenkoism was increasingly seen as pseudoscience and never gained traction in the West. Even Lysenkoists began to acknowledge DNA as the material basis of heredity, despite their continued rejection of gene theory. Soviet scientists recognized advancements in molecular biology and by 1964 Lysenko had been removed from his position as the head of Soviet biological sciences. He eventually faded into obscurity and passed away in 1976.
The Tragic Consequences of Lysenko’s Theories
Lysenko’s theories presented a unique opportunity for Joseph Stalin. Not only could he improve the agricultural output of the state but he could do so using a completely revolutionary method. With this in mind, during the 1930s Stalin implemented a disastrous plan to modernize Soviet agriculture. Millions were forced to work on collectivized, state-run farms while leaving their own land unmanaged. The result of this mass collectivization was widespread famine across the Soviet Union as well as crop failures.
Despite the failures in Soviet agriculture, Stalin turned to Lysenko and tasked him with using his theories of vernalization to solve the famine. Lysenko ordered farmers to plant seeds closer together. His belief was that plants of similar type would not compete with each other. At the same time, he also banned pesticides and fertilizers. This combination led to an uncontrollable situation of overgrown crops inundated with weeds that farmers were unable to manage.
Recent historical studies have indicated that almost every crop that was planted during this period following Lysenko’s techniques, including essential grains like wheat and rye, either withered or decayed before they could be harvested. Deaths from famine in the Soviet Union reached their peak in 1933, but four years later food production was still not back to pre-famine levels due to the ineffectiveness of Lysenko’s techniques.
However, the Soviet people were not the only ones who suffered under Lysenkoism. China suffered one of the worst famines in its history after adopting Lysenko’s methods in the late 1950s. The famine became so bad that people resorted to eating the bark from trees, bird droppings, or even cannibalism. Historians estimate that as many as thirty million people died from famine across China.
Return of Lysenko’s Theories
Despite the widespread dismissal of his theories as pseudoscience by the scientific community, Lysenko has strangely seen a minor resurgence in modern-day Russia. Lysenko has received the most support from a group of Russian nationalists, Stalinists, and Russian fringe scientists, and even some members of the Russian Orthodox Church. The new scientific discoveries in the field of epigenetics have contributed to this resurgence of Lysenkoism, by giving new evidence for Lysenko-like ideas.
A general skepticism of science also drives the resurgence of interest in Lysenko. His supporters claim that genetics is against Russian interests and aids American imperialism. Given the importance of science to Western civilization, Lysenko’s rejection of Western scientific concepts is regarded as the deeds of a great Russian hero. In addition, there is a great deal of nostalgia in Russia for the Soviet Union and its anti-Western leaders such as Joseph Stalin.
