HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 224

biology and genetics in the final decade of STALIN 's
rule (1943-53). After early research into plant
physiology and development, some of which bore
legitimate intellectual fruit, Lysenko became a
spokesman for highly unconventional theories of
inheritance based upon the work of a Russian
horticulturist, I. V. Michurin. His fierce attacks
upon Mendelian genetics were officially endorsed
by the COMMUNIST PARTY of the USSR in 1948.
There followed a period in which the whole of
Soviet biology, but especially genetics, was rav-
aged by ideological conflict. Serious scientists
were pilloried, laboratories closed or transformed
into heavens of “Michurinist” biology, and the

teaching and practice of biology perverted. It
seems clear that Lysenko himself connived at
these abuses and used his position as president of
the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences to do
so. Although he was discredited after the death of
Stalin, he found a new patron in Nikita KHRUSH -
CHEV , before being finally demoted from positions
of influence after 1964. The consensus of several
generations condemns Lysenko for the irrepara-
ble harm done to entire fields of Soviet science
and the human cost—including imprisonment
and death—suffered by those who, like Nikolai
VAVILOV , spoke out against his ideas or were oth-
erwise considered his opponents.