@p @Nimbius666 Please do mind, that I restrained myself from participating in this branch until this.
> Lysenkoism is historical materialism applied to plants because Marx said that Darwin was wrong about competition.
Well, let’s start with that “Lysenkoism” is an invented term, which appeared much later than the events of 1930s. Quite probably it was invented as another psychological weapon undermining the achievements of the nation during the epoch of Stalin. In Russian the word wears a suffix which is used to form derogatory terms, so one just hearing the word and not knowing anything about the matter, would think, that it’s something bad.
Second, there was no Marx involved. And about Darwin Lysenko himself said: “…Weissmanism and Mendelism-Morganism, which followed it had their edge (as in ‘sword edge’ – @dkv) directed against materialistic elements of the Darwin’s theory of evolution”. That’s from his article on genetics for the Big Soviet Encyclopaedia.
Third, the science has made a loop on a helix since then, so the dialectics changed. To understand what the arguing was about back in 1936, one has to first acquaint himself with the contemporary state of the science. To put it ve-ery short, genetics back then was not a science but a shape of one. For this reason it was called “formalistic”. Meaning, that the scientists have noticed pattern and figured out some regularity and have some reproducibility in their experiments, but they cannot yet explain, how it happens or why. Also, there were exceptions, which they couldn’t explain with just Mendel’s, Morgan’s or Weissman’s teachings.
Back in 1936 the level of science was as such: it was known, that cells reproduce, and that SOMEHOW the transmission of parents’ properties is reflected on the children. Scientists knew about chromosomes, but didn’t know how they participate in this transmission (they argued about their exact number by then), or do they really participate. Because there’s a cell, there’s the core in it but also the cytoplasm. Both the core and the cytoplasm participate in mitosis. So where exactly is that, which is responsible for the transmission of hereditary properties, they didn’t know. Some were for the core with the chromosomes, some for the cytoplasm, some for the cytoplasm within in the core, around chromosomes, and some supposed, that everything together is responsible. The most important thing to understand here is that a ‘gene’ in the contemporary terms, which the geneticists tried to discover, was supposed to be something in the cell body, like a mitochondria. A piece or a brick, and the cell contains a collection of such pieces. It was known, that some pieces (or bricks) are tied with a bond: if one property is active, then the other is too, if one is hushed, so is the other. But this didn’t give much. The supposition about a DNA was introduced by Nikolai Koltsov in 1927, but it wasn’t known, where this molecule actually is. The structure of the chromosomes and the mechanism of taking copies from parts of DNA and building protein molecules by ribosomes and RNA in the cytoplasm was discovered only in 1953–1958. Later it was discovered, that particular spans on the DNA bear information about the inheritable properties, however, an equals sign often cannot be put between a span of atoms on a DNA and a certain property, like having blond hair or having a thick beard. the copying process may involve different parts, and these parts are subject to mutations, which happen constantly within a living cell. Thus the new science was born: molecular biology. The genetics thus became a certain part within molecular biology where it’s still called a science of its own for simplicity in education. The term ‘gene’ was modified to be applied to a particular span of atoms on the DNA. In reality there wasn’t found a body or a substance, that exists in the cell by itself, and conveys as is its properties to a new cell. There is a constant production of proteins and mutations, of which the inheritance is but a consequence. And between this concept and what the genetics of the 1930s imagines there’s a lot of “if”s and “but”s.
The arguing about genetics in the USSR was basically about where this ‘gene’ is. Nikolai Vavilov considered it one thing, Lysenko the other. The arguments of the genetics gathered around Vavilov were about factitious ways of inheritance, which seemed contradictory to the common sense. To put it short, the genetics insisted, that the ‘gene stuff’ is pretty solid and it cannot be influenced, in other words: the ‘gene stuff’ is the reason a cell is built, and a cell, being a derivative product, cannot affect what created it. We’ll have to continue after delving into the political side of the question here.
Fourth, politics. There are two facets of this. Let’s begin with what’s on the surface. People want to eat, people need bread. There is an agriculture academy working in the country, which must think, how the country may produce enough, be effective. But where’s its head? He’s travelling abroad, gathering samples of everything. He’s making a collection, a genetic fund of plants. The country pays for his travels, pays bills for the acquired equipment, visits and whatever, and he, when he comes home, writes several hundred pages, describing his findings and spawning 10 more institutes (actually, over a hundred in his presidency). In 1938 the country says “knock-knock, show something for the money you’ve spent” and he had nothing to show, because this collection was a purely academic science, it was interesting for him to make, he made a couple of valuable discoveries, like about the regions where the initial sorts/species came from, but this didn’t have much application in science. There specimens could be cross-breed with the existing ones, but it would take ages to achieve the desirable grain weight. The government has placed a direct task to the Agricultural academy of science (VASKhNIL) to develop a sort of wheat resistant to low temperatures. And Vavilov, its president, decided to leave the post immediately, proposing one of his local subordinates – Lysenko. Trofim Lysenko was an experienced agronomist who’s already developed some new sorts. He’s worked for 17 years already. He tried to carry the duty of a scientist in addition to his vocation, but between the job of VASKhNIL president, agronomic research and application (i.e. completing the requests form the government), he didn’t have much time to be a full-fledged scientist too. So, his polemics with the geneticists don’t reach the necessary depth. Even though, he tries. Vavilov was under pressure from both sides: the colleagues, who depended on him, now despised him for losing the post of the president, and before the face of the government and the science he looked defeated and wrong. The government has suspected, that his inclination to be absent abroad is tied to contacts with anti-Soviet organisations, and by using the funds dedicated to science he’s just been wasting country’s money. He wrote denunciation on Lysenko, in attempt to portrait him as a person using his influence to silence the geneticists (who insisted that Vavilov would take action and return the post of the president to himself), and Lysenko filed a plea to the Chairman of the Sovnarkom (Ministry head) complaining about Vavilov. The arguing rose until it finally spilled out as a public confrontation, but the genetics here was quite probably just a screen for the secret fight for power on one side and the desire to keep it on the other. It was an open secret, that many members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR were raised yet in the empire days and disliked the Soviet system. Many important figures, such as Ivan Pavlov, openly criticised the Soviet leaders before their students, after achieving the status of an “non-touchable” person from the very same leaders. Trofim Lysenko was a son of a simple farmer, so he was a natural enemy of those people. Vavilov had a chance, by the way: in 1938 Stalin called him to Kremlin and asked about his opinion and what he’s going to do. Vavilov has been insisting, that what he does is very important, and didn’t say anything about the increasing the volume of crops. So he didn’t show a concern for the current matters of importance. If he would salute and say “my bad”, “I’ll make sure to arrange people and resources for the task at hand, we’ll direct all effort to the immediate goals set by the party” he would probably be fine, even without leaving everything to Lysenko. But he tried to lead his own line, thinking that he could bend the will of the government and rethink what’s important. A naïve thought, indeed. Then he tried to ask in favour of jailed scientists of dubious reputation, then he tried to undermine the work of Lysenko with his letters. With this, and also considering his former reputation of money-waster and traveller with contacts abroad, he only made NKVD more suspicious about him and brought an arrest upon himself. Beriya was only glad to reveal another “enemy of the people”. There might another motive under the carpet: the genetic, as the Soviet Weissmanists described it, had a relation to the concept of eugenics, that has been developing in the Nazi Germany. So that you may understand it better, the “truly Soviet genetics” was approaching the subject more from a selectionist point of view, affecting the specimen to enhance his inherited properties, like the ability to withstand colder temperatures or being resistant to parasite fungi or insects. Weissman’s genetics approached the subject of inheritance from the – yet imaginary ‘core’ or ‘gene [collection]’, which affected the organism, a plant or an animal, effectively just setting properties, without an ability of somehow influencing them. This was a West – East issue of views: is an organism just like it is, with a fixed core, which makes it unable to be changed, or is it something, that can be changed by outer influence, the conditions of the environment? Some draw parallels to Calvinism and to the theory of Lombroso, the latter stating that criminals are criminals by nature, and not because the environment made them criminals. An echo of this sounds in the words of H. S. Chamberlain: “cattle-like faces of peasants… miserable, miscreant faces reflecting all the vices of the working class”. This is the man, who would think Britain should rule the world, but left it for Germany to get married on the daughter of Richard Wagner. It’s after the acquaintance with him Hitler would acquire the idea of a “master race” which was transformed from “Rule, Britannia!” to “Dеutsсhland übеr аlles!” with a poof!.jpg If you read the earlier posts, you should already know, that the Sovet Union was expecting another big war at its door yet in the 1920s and after the Germany acquired Czechoslovakia there was little doubt, was this is preparation for, the clock began ticking. In the 1937 a plot of army generals was uncovered, and one of the accusations against them was contacts with Germany, the probable enemy. It’s worth to be added, that the Soviet science inherited the science of the Russian empire, which was to a great extent influenced, if not to say occupied by the Germans. Maxim Gorkiy wrote about the Russian empire: “at the universities there are only Germans and Poles, and from Russians only the children of priests”. The occupation was so strong, that when Sergei Botkin (1832–1889, Ph.D in medicine, professor and eventually physician at the emperor’s court) came back from his studies in Germany and called for changes (he was already a reputable person, with works published in Germany and other countries), the local German professors refused to listen to what he’s brought from Germany (and there was a considerable gap in the level of science already). And that was the medicine. The influence persisted with the people, so the Soviet government had a reasonable fear of “geneticists” getting under the German influence and becoming a lever to turn a considerable amount of scientists and the layman public to their side, to Germany’s side and against the Soviet system.
All in all, Lysenko stood on the position of “Michurin’s genetics”, which can be thought of as “genetics as confirmed by experiments” that is, coming from to the question of inheritance from the outer, the practical side of things. He was blaming Weissmanism on the grounds of it having less common sense, and did so carefully, not delving much into details. (Because the science has not acquired any actual facts yet, proving or disproving those ideas. As we remember, the arguing took place in 1936, and the discovery of DNA structure and protein building mechanism belongs to 1953–1958). So, in the dialectics of the epoch, Lysenko just called for staying within bounds of common sense. Kind of like “The biology would eventually discover the truth, but for now let’s just rely on what’s experimentally confirmed to be working, okay? After all, the people of the country waste their money on us, we have to look at the practical side.” The geneticists were “HE’S OPPRESSING US! HE’S USING HIS INFLUENCE” and then Lysenko went “Ok, you want war, then it’s war, fucking Weissmanists”.
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