The pushback against state interference in science: how Lysenkoism tried to suppress Genetics and how it was eventually defeated

Abstract

Genetics in the Soviet Union (USSR) achieved state-of-the-art results and had reached a peak of development by the mid-1930s due to the efforts of the scientific schools of several major figures, including Sergei Navashin, Nikolai Koltsov, Grigorii Levitsky, Yuri Filipchenko, Nikolai Vavilov, and Solomon Levit. Unfortunately, the Soviet government distrusted intellectually independent science and this led to state support for a fraudulent pseudoscientific concept widely known as Lysenkoism, which hugely damaged biology as a whole. Decades of dominance of the Lysenkoism had ruinous effects and the revival of biology in the USSR in the late 1950s–early 1960s was very difficult. In fact, this was realized to be a problem for Soviet science as a whole, and many mathematicians, physicists, chemists, and other scientists made efforts to rehabilitate genetics and to transfer biology to the “jurisdiction” of science from that of politics. The key events in the history of these attempts to pushback against state interference in science, and to promote the development of genetics and molecular biology, are described in this paper. These efforts included supportive letters to the authorities (e.g., the famous “Letter of three hundred”), (re)publishing articles and giving lectures on “forbidden” science, and organizing laboratories and departments for research in genetics and molecular biology under the cover of nuclear physics or of other projects respected by the government and Communist party leaders. The result was that major figures in the hard sciences played a major part in the revival of genetics and biology in the USSR.

Lysenkoism hugely damaged biology in the USSR and served as an important example of a number of similar processes in other areas of science. New evidence has recently become available about its history. Here, Ptushenko describes the remarkable efforts of mathematicians, physicists, and chemists to reanimate and rehabilitate genetics and ‘non-Michurinist’ biology as a whole.

Introduction: biology in the Soviet Union (USSR) before the catastrophe

At the beginning of the 20th century, before the Russian Revolution, the basis for the fruitful development of science in Russia was laid. This was due to the growth and strengthening of non-governmental educational and scientific institutions, an improved flow of funds and the formation of new academic societies. Among the most famous of these were the women’s higher education institution in some cities: A.L. Shanyavsky University in Moscow and Ch.S. Ledentsov Society for the Advancement of the Exact Sciences and Their Practical Applications (Shnoll 2012). It was a breath of freedom and a time of hope for science after the counter-reformation era of the 1880 s, with its obstacles to education for the non-elite population. This pre-revolutionary impetus for strengthening science remained in the 1920s despite the civil war, the economic devastation produced by WWI and Revolution, and other severe difficulties. Along with other sciences, the science of genetics developed very rapidly in the USSR in 1920s. It reached its peak by the mid-1930s and held one of the leading positions in the world. As one sign of this, we cite Hermann Muller’s (1890–1967) acceptance of a position to work in the USSR in 1933–1936 and the decision of the International Organizing Committee for the convocation of the VII International Genetic Congress to be held in 1937 in Moscow (Soyfer 2003). The most renowned example of genetics’ success in this period was the scientific activity of Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943) who was an exemplary researcher with encyclopedic knowledge: he contributed to genetics, botany, plant physiology, plant selection, plant systematics and evolution, biochemistry, and biogeography. His main achievements include the identification of the original centers for the domestication of plants (centers of diversity), the law of homologous series in variation (Vavilov 1922), and the theory of Linnean species as a system (Vavilov 1931). Vavilov’s colleague Georgii Karpechenko (1899–1941) found a way of interspecific hybridization using artificial polyploidization (Karpechenko 1928, 1937).

Vavilov’s older friend Nikolai Koltsov (1872–1940) made major contributions. Koltsov was one of the greatest Russian biologists of the 20th century. Indeed, he founded physicochemical biology in Russia. Genetics was only one of the directions to which he contributed by his own research and by establishing a scientific school. He discovered the cytoskeleton (Koltzoff 1905) and formulated the idea of a crystal-like mechanism of copying inherited information (Haldane 1945; Kogge 2012), which further became part of international science through the work of Nikolai Timofeeff-Ressovsky (1900–1981), and Max Delbrück (1906–1981), who had accepted these ideas from Timofeeff-Ressovsky. Koltsov could also be considered to be one of the founders of epigenetics (Morange 2011). His disciples further developed his ideas. Thus, Vladimir Sakharov (1902–1969) started works on searching chemical mutagenesis in 1932; in 1935, Iosif Rapoport (1912–1990) proceeded and, for several of the pre-war years, explored the difference between inherited and non-inherited effects of various chemical agents and discovered strong chemical mutagens (Ozernyuk 2007; Ramensky 2012). In 1925–1928, Nikolai Belyaev (1899–1937) performed pioneering research on the genetics of natural Drosophila populations and the physiological mechanisms of ontogenetic development of Lepidoptera (Argutinskaya and Zakharov 2005). Together with Boris Astaurov (who also was Koltsov’s disciple; 1904–1974), he later (in 1930s) conducted large-scale research on the genetics and physiology of silkworm development, which was important for the progress in sericulture in the USSR. Timofeeff-Ressovsky made one of the first works on radiobiology. Sergei Chetverikov (1880–1959) worked on population genetics and helped lay the foundations of the Modern Synthesis by 1926 (Chetverikov 1961; see also Mayr and Provine 1980).

Solomon Levit (1894–1938) founded the Russian medical genetics (Babkov 2013). Grigorii Levitsky (1878–1942), a disciple of Sergei Navashin (1857–1930), in 1924, introduced the term “karyotype” in its modern sense (Levitsky 1924), laid the basis for karyosystematics (Levitsky 1931), and formulated a hypothesis about the relationship between the variability of chromosomes and the evolutionary process (Levitsky 1926). His works (as well as the ones of Sergei Chetverikov) inspired Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) and later led him to the Modern Synthesis (Dobzhansky 1937).

Such combined interest in both genetics and evolutionary issues was characteristic of Russian biologists of that time. As early as in 1915 and 1917, geneticist Yuri Filipchenko (1882–1930) published textbooks “Variability and Evolution” and “Heredity,” respectively; later (1929) they were combined into one textbook “Genetics.” He also introduced the concepts of macro- and microevolution (Philiptschenko 1927). At the same time, Ivan Schmalhausen (1884–1963) who started as a morphologist developed major insights about evolution (Schmalhausen 1938).

The arrival of Lysenkoism

After the Great Break (the radical change in the economic policy) in the USSR had been started, i.e., since 1928–1929, science also felt the changes that had affected all the country. The Soviet authorities did not trust the scientists, first, because they were intellectuals, not workers, and second, because of their adherence to scientific principles rather than to party principles. The Bolsheviks felt that they needed a new science based on new people and new principles, completely subordinate to the party ideology instead of an independently minded scientific community. To solve this task, all possible means were used. These included: promotion of the Communist Academy and foundation of the All-Union Association of Workers of Science and Technology Building Socialism (Joravsky 1961); removal of prominent “traditional” scientists from active scientific and public life (thus, most of the scientists mentioned above were arrested, expelled, or at least dismissed); reformation of the “traditional” scientists (understood as something like the redemption of a criminal; in the USSR, the figurative word “reforging” was widely used).

Trofim Lysenko (1898–1976) came in high time and was ideal for solving all these tasks. His social-class origin (from peasants) made him closely allied to the authorities, while the intelligentsia were alien to them. He promised to quickly solve all the agricultural tasks set by the party; in contrast, “traditional” scientists said that that was impossible. He claimed in his speeches all the main theses of the party of that time about the class struggle in science, about enemies, and saboteurs (Soyfer 2002; Reznik 2017). In addition, he supported Lamarckian ideas about heredity and evolution, ideas that were appreciated by Stalin as well as reflecting his own confidence in ability to pivotally transform human to create a new Soviet humanity (Soyfer 2012). Thus, the doctrines of Lysenkoism came to dominate Soviet biology. It was a social phenomenon positioning itself as a scientific one and moreover, the only true one. It is usually associated with genetics but it was actually much broader and rather entirely covered biology, having been named “Michurinist biology” in the USSR (see below). It was most active since the mid-1930s till the mid-1960s.

The main theoretical ideas underlying it were the following: (1) the inheritance of acquired traits (i.e., fundamental element of Neo-Lamarckism) with new biological properties arising from direct environmental exposure and being inherited by changes in metabolism (Lysenko 1958a); (2) denial of the role of chromosomes and DNA in heredity [a belief Lysenko retained until the end of life, i.e., until the mid-1970s (Aleksandrov 1993)]; (3) denial of intraspecific competition (Lysenko 1952); (4) the mutual transformations of different species (at ontogenetic timescale) driven by environment, e.g., the ability of wheat to produce rye grains (Lysenko 1958b) or the ability of a warbler to give birth to a cuckoo after eating furry caterpillars (Berg 1988); (5) denial of the cell theory and support of the idea of spontaneous generation of cells from the “non-cellular matter” (Lysenko 1958c); (6) support of the “theory” of the transformation of viruses to microorganisms through the “stage of crystals” (Bosh’ian 1949); and (7) denial of the applicability of chemistry, physics, and mathematics to the solution of any biological problems (e.g., the relevance of mathematical statistics for verification of Mendel’s laws). Some of Lysenko’s specific discoveries and suggestions were based on these fundamental ideas such as the use of transferring inherited traits from the rootstock to the graft for breeding new varieties of plants (Lysenko 1958d), the use of breeding cows giving milk with high fat content by adding chocolate production waste to their diet (Dobretsov and Marchuk 2000), the ecological “law” suggesting the help of organisms belonging to the same species to each other rather than their competition, and the method (widely used in the USSR) of “nest planting” based on this “law,” that is bedding many seeds (up to hundreds) per planting hole (Lysenko 1958e).

Despite the obvious scientific absurdity of these ideas, Lysenkoism in the USSR became possible and, moreover, dominant due to active state support. In addition to the general reasons concerning Bolsheviks’ politics and listed above, the personal qualities of Lysenko mattered. Lysenko was talented to adulate authorities (Soyfer 2002) and to deftly use appropriate slogans. Besides, he was maniacally convicted of the correctness of his views and pushed them with vigor (Aleksandrov 1993). Nevertheless, the triumph of Lysenkoism was only one example of many similar ones concerning all scientific disciplines in the USSR, both natural and humanitarian. The party and state authorities valued obedience and discipline much more than professionalism and independent thinking, and this inevitably gave the rogues an advantage over the real scientists.

Did Lysenko make at least small but real contribution to normal science? In fact, even his early work can hardly be assessed as a contribution, rather it could be called an encounter with normal science. In 1922–1929, he had a lucky chance to work at breeding stations in Ukraine and Azerbaijan, the latter belonging to N.I. Vavilov’s Institute of Applied Botany and New Cultures. In 1925–1926, N.F. Derevitsky, the director of the station, introduced Lysenko to the methodology and results of G.S. Zaitsev’s work (Zaitsev 1927) on the effect of low temperatures on the germination and development of cotton (Reznik 2017); at the beginning of 1927, N.M. Tulaykov, a colleague of Vavilov, also informed Lysenko about these works (Soyfer 2002) and probably the works of N.A. Maximov (Maximov and Pojarkova 1924). In 1927–1928, Lysenko tried to reproduce Zaitsev’s results on cotton and several other crops, and in 1928, he published the results in the proceedings of the station (Lysenko 1928). This paper was more like laboratory records than an article and was one of the very few scientific publications of Lysenko. Later, after he quickly came into power, he completely left scientific methodology for political one. A vast majority of his papers were newspaper articles and recordings of his speeches or “scientific” articles in his own journal (in 1932–1966, it was called “Bulletin of Yarovization,” “Yarovization,” or “Agrobiology”). His experiments lacked the control groups and statistical processing or the results were simply falsified [all this is described in detail by Soyfer (2002) and Reznik (2017)]. He responded with political accusations to scientific criticism, the latter eventually almost dried up due to Stalin’s patronage. When Lysenko spoke at the Academy of Sciences Assembly about his new theory “explaining” the ability of a warbler to give birth to a cuckoo after eating furry caterpillars, the academicians applauded (Berg 1988).

One of the deceptions that Lysenko undertook was his use of the name of the noted agriculturalist Ivan Michurin (1855–1935). Lysenko called himself a disciple of Michurin and promoted his speculations as a development of Michurin’s “theories.” In fact, Michurin was not a geneticist, nor ever considered himself a scientist, and he had no “theories.” His attitude to genetics was indeed negative (Michurin 1915), but “anti-Mendelism” was common in the early 20th century even among prominent scientists (e.g., Timiriazev 1914). Michurin had a warm relationship with Vavilov (Goncharov and Savel’ev 2016) whom Lysenko considered his foe. According to widespread legends, during his lifetime, Michurin did not want to have anything to do with his supposed disciple Lysenko (Timofeev-Resovskii 1977; Reznik 2017). Some recently published memoirs confirm these legends (Ptushenko and Volokitina 2020). Nevertheless, after Michurin’s death, Lysenko did not hesitate to call his pseudoscientific views “Michurinist biology.” Unfortunately, they were known by this allonym in the USSR.

We will refer to this phenomenon as the Lysenko affair following David Joravsky (Joravsky 1970), although in Russian the term “Lysenkovschina” has been coined to denote this social phenomenon, to distinguish it from “Lysenkoism,” which denotes solely the semi-scientific views (Kolchinsky 2017). It has been described in many articles and books in Russian (Aleksandrov 1993; Soyfer 2002; Shnoll 2012; Reznik 2017) and English (Medvedev 1969; Joravsky 1970; Berg 1988; Graham 1992; Pall et al. 2017), including a recent detailed article (Borinskaya et al. 2019) about the infamous August 1948 session of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL, an abbreviation of the Russian name “Vsesoiuznaia Akademiia Sel’skoKhoziaistvenenykh Nauk imeni Lenina”), which made Lysenko’s views the official doctrines governing studies of heredity and agriculture. Note that this session was actually not a scientific discussion. This was a showtrial prepared by Stalin; a year later, he wrote to Y.A. Zhdanov while preparing analogous showtrial in physiology: “… About the tactics of fighting the opponents of the academician Pavlov’s theory. We must first gather supporters of Pavlov in secret, organize them, distribute the roles and only after that convene a meeting … to give the opponents a general battle. Without this, you can fail the case. Remember: the enemy must be beaten for sure” [cit. ex: (Blokh 2005)]. Surely, the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AS) approved the decisions of the VASKhNIL. AS president S.I. Vavilov wrote in his diary about his desire to pass away instead of seeing that Lysenko’s Walpurgisnacht, but he needed to obediently admit the mistake of the AS in supporting for “Mendelism-Morganism” and ordered to stop genetic research at the AS [cit. ex: (Vavilov 2012)]. [S.I. Vavilov, the brother of N.I. Vavilov, even while accepting the appointment as the AS president in 1945, perceived it as an execution and wrote in his diary that it will be “the beginning of … turning into a mannequin pulled by strings” (Vavilov 2012)].

The political nature of Lysenkoism led also to ignoring the issues of national economy despite practice was declared the main criterion of truth in the USSR. Thus, Lysenko received his first award “for works on vernalization” as early as in 1931 (Gluschenko and Epifanova 1953), when he had just promised (rather than completed any work!) to “feed the country.” By 1937, the famous breeder P.N. Konstantinov experimentally proved that Lysenko’s method of vernalization led to huge losses: it demanded twofold amount of seeds and made them susceptible to smut damage while the yield increased negligibly if any (not more than by 0.4% instead of promised twofold and finally reported 1.1-fold increase) (Konstantinov 1937). However, this did not shake Lysenko’s position. In 1948, Konstantinov wrote a letter to Stalin analyzing the damage caused by many of Lysenko’s gambles: wide-scale vernalization, direct reseeding, summer potato planting, as well as the collapse of agricultural science and education in the USSR. In 1945–1948, many other biologists (A.R. Zhebrak, S.I. Alikhanyan, E.N. Radaeva, I.A. Rapoport, V.P. Efroimson, and N.P. Dubinin) wrote to the Soviet leadership about economic and political damage caused to the USSR by Lysenko’s rogueries supported by government, and even high-ranking Soviet officials (Y.A. Zhdanov and S.G. Suvorov) understood it (Esakov et al. 1991a, 1991b, 1991c). Hence the negative practical value of Lysenko’s activity was well known to the authorities. In response, Stalin organized the August 1948 session of the VASHNIL, which was secretly prepared from May to July 1948 and was aimed to wean scientists to analyze the practical value on their own. Critics were forced to publicly repent by threats. Efroimson was arrested. Later, in the time of Khrushchev, many others appealed to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Central Committee with motivated and detailed assessments of the economic and political damage from the ban on genetics and support for Lysenkoism. The manuscript of Lyubishchev (Golubovski 1991) and the Letter of three hundred (see the corresponding section below) are two well-known examples among many others. However, all this had a small and short-term effect if any. The mention of the harmfulness of Lysenko’s projects for the Soviet economy was allowed in the national press only in short periods, 1953–1954 and 1964–1965, and this harmfulness was not a real reason for authorities to reduce their support for Lysenko. Thus, in 1964, these accusations against Lysenko were aimed only at justifying the removal of Khrushchev, Lysenko’s patron (Soyfer 2002). At the same time, since late 1940s, some agricultural methods (e.g., hormonal stimulation of multiple fertility) or varieties (polyploids, corn inbred lines) that had long been of great benefit in agriculture but were considered by Lysenko as “Morganistic-Weismanistic” were banned for use (Medvedev 1969; Esakov et al. 1991c; Aleksandrov 1993).

Actually, Lysenko was not the only participant in the Lysenko affair. Many people, both illiterate and educated, were ready to glorify him and falsify their own data to fit them to “Michurinist biology” out of fear or for the sake of their career (Medvedev 1969; Aleksandrov 1993; Soyfer 2002). One of the most well-known Lysenkoists, in fact, the ideologist of Lysenkoism, was I.I. Prezent. However, following the apt formulation of E.I. Kolchinsky, each of them was “only Stalin’s minion. If Stalin had not directed it, the session (in 1948—V.P.) would have merely been one of the scandalous campaigns of that time, affecting only the VASKhNIL” (Borinskaya et al. 2019). V.N. Soyfer makes an even stronger generalization, considering them an inevitable product of the Bolshevik regime (Soyfer 2002). This is the only thing that helps to understand the survivability of the Lysenkoism under Khrushchev and the difficulty of eradicating it even after his resignation.

Having lasted for several decades, the Lysenko affair had disastrous results for biology. The Soviet scientific community in the area of genetics (including evolutionary, agricultural, and medical genetics) was actually ruined. In addition, a generation of scientific and administrative workers adherent to Lysenkoism and dependent on Lysenko had been formed over the years (Soyfer 2002). This led to an entrenchment of Lysenkoism, and the revival of genetics was hampered even after the weakening of pressure from the supreme power.

Nevertheless, and this is the story we tell in this article, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and scientists of other disciplines (we use the word “physicists” to denote this scientific community outside of biology) played a remarkable role in this revival. This was probably partly due to the somewhat lesser human and moral losses they suffered during the Great Terror (a massive campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union in the late 1930s); also, the military value of their works to some extent protected them from persecution (although this should not be overestimated). Physicists were often seen as all-powerful actors, almost a Deus ex machina, but this power has been exaggerated. In fact, their privilege was being allowed to have their own judgments (i.e., not coinciding with the position of the party) on low-priority issues and to discuss them in their small coterie, but not in public. Every act of helping the “formal geneticists” required civic courage and high diplomatic skill, and could be dangerous to their careers and even their lives in the Stalinist period. Certainly, the possibility of this helping was significantly affected by the political events, of which the most important and reducing the fear of people were the death of Stalin (1953) and Khrushchev’s condemnation of the “cult of personality” of Stalin at the 20th CPSU Congress (1956).

Without attempting to give the full story of the pushback of science against the Lysenko affair and prohibiting of genetics, we describe some important episodes in the paper. We focus on the impact of the scientists in the hard sciences who endeavored to legitimize genetics and molecular biology in the USSR or provide “refuges” for the work and free scientific communication of biologists.

Beginning the pushback against Lysenkoism: Andrey Kolmogorov’s contribution to the scientific discussion between genetics and Lysenkoism

Already in the 1930s, the first defense of genetics came from the great mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov (1903–1987) (Figure 1). Kolmogorov had long been interested in biology. Recalling his high-school years, he wrote: “In mathematics I was one of the first in my class, but my principal serious scientific passions in school were initially biology and Russian history” (McFadden 2000). In the mid-1930s, he published work on theoretical ecology (Kolmogoroff 1936) and population genetics (Kolmogoroff 1935; Kolmogoroff et al. 1937). In 1940, the geneticist Serebrovsky drew his attention to the results obtained by Lysenko’s graduate student, who concluded that Mendelian segregation was not observed in her experimental data (Ermolaeva 1939). Kolmogorov showed that her data actually confirm Mendel’s laws (Kolmogoroff 1940).

Figure 1.

V.M. Tikhomirov, A.N. Komogorov, S. Sadikova. Moscow, 1959. Photo by Yu.V. Prokhorov. Source: Personal archive of V.M. Tikhomirov.

Unfortunately, Lysenko concluded from this incident that mathematics was dangerous for him and should not be allowed in biology. (He later formed similar opinions about physics and chemistry.) Given his leadership role after August 1948, this was disastrous for Soviet biology for several decades. Kolmogorov was unable to continue this “discussion” himself, but passed the baton on. When Yuly Kerkis (1907–1977) was checking Mendel’s laws in Drosophila in Vavilov’s institute, Kolmogorov recommended that his younger scientific “brother,” Alexei Lyapunov (1911–1973), from academician Luzin’s scientific/mathematical school (nicknamed “Luzitania”), could analyze the results statistically (Shnoll 2012). Their joint paper (Kerkis and Lyapunov 1941) had important consequences.

Alexei Lyapunov’s seminars

Among mathematicians, Lyapunov (Figure 2), a pioneer of cybernetics, was probably the most interested in biological problems. He was acquainted with many outstanding scientists, including biologist Nikolai Koltsov and biophysicist Peter Lazarev (1878–1942). In 1932, Lyapunov joined “Luzitania” as a mathematician, but he remained interested in biology. In the 1940s, he organized a children’s scientific club for his daughters, Elena and Natalya, and their friends. The mathematician Vladimir Arnold (1937–2010), a regular participant, recollected that they “ranged from studying physics to biology (including the forbidden genetics and cybernetics), cosmology, or geology” (Arnold 2007).

Figure 2.

N.V. Timofeeff-Ressovsky and A.A. Lyapunov. Miassovo, late 1950s–early 1960s. Source: Personal archive of E.A. Lyapunova.

In autumn 1954, most of the participants became university students, and the club transformed into regular scientific seminars. Lyapunov’s daughters entered the Moscow State University (MSU) Faculty of Biology,¹ which almost completely lacked a mathematical component because of Lysenko’s influence. To fill this gap, Lyapunov delivered a course of lectures on probability theory and statistics, although this could get him or her daughters into a lot of trouble (as it happened later; see below, section Revival of a full-fledged biological education). The seminar soon expanded to include genetics and other biological fields, and Lyapunov invited other scientists. Many students who attended later became famous scientists. Lyapunov repeatedly offered to deliver a course of lectures or seminars on mathematical biology and biocybernetics for MSU biology students, but was always rejected. In 1955, he organized a seminar on cybernetics in the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty, and biologists also sometimes participated.

Timofeeff-Ressovsky and the seminar on genetics in Kapitza’s institute

A key event for Lyapunov was his encounter with Nikolai Timofeeff-Ressovsky (Figure 2) in 1955, who had just been released from a “special settlement” [a high-security institute where he lived and worked as a prisoner after being deported from Germany (Babkov and Sakanyan 2002)]. On December 9, Timofeeff presented a report, “On the influence of ionizing radiation on the mutagenesis,” in Lyapunov’s home in Moscow (Vorontsov 2011). During this first visit to Moscow, he also spoke in the Biological Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AS) and was invited by Boris Tarusov (1900–1977) to speak at the MSU Biophysics Department (Babkov and Sakanyan 2002, pp. 252–253). In 1956, he also spoke at Lyapunov’s seminar on cybernetics (Vorontsov 2011).

On February 8, 1956, the most important seminar for the revival of genetics in the USSR was held. At the suggestion of Igor Tamm (1895–1971; about Tamm, see below), Peter Kapitza (1894–1984; Figure 3) invited Timofeeff to the AS Institute for Physical Problems to lecture about radiation damage in heredity, the dose–effect relationship, and “target theory,” which made it possible to estimate the size of the gene (Timofeev-Resovskii 1995). Then Tamm spoke about the newly discovered double helical structure of DNA, chromosome replication, and Gamow and Pauling’s models (Rubinin 1990a, 1990b). As Timofeev-Resovskii (1995) recalled, neither report had “any special ‘fighting’ character. These were normal …. reports on two general issues of genetics.” Nevertheless, the authorities hoped to prevent the seminar (Babkov and Sakanyan 2002, pp. 528–536). Only a personal telephone call from Kapitsa to Khrushchev allowed it to go ahead (Kapitza 1993). This meeting “became a landmark not only for Moscow biologists, but also for many others. The conference room, the wide corridor and the stairs leading to it were filled to capacity” (Timofeev-Resovskii 1995), and a radio was installed to allow everyone present to hear the talks, 800 people, according to information gathered for the communist supervisory authority (Babkov and Sakanyan 2002, p. 255). This event seems to have catalyzed the revival of genetics.

Figure 3.

L.A. Artsimovich, M.A. Lavrentyev, N.N. Semenov, P.L. Kapitza. Moscow, 1956. Source: Memorial Museum of P.L. Kapitza in IPP. Photo provided by T.I. Balakhovskaya.

Organizing seminars on molecular biology in the USSR in the late 1950s. The role of I.E. Tamm

Among non-biologists, Igor Tamm (Figure 4) was one of the most active fighters for the revival of genetics in the USSR. He was a theoretical physicist from the scientific school of Leonid Mandelstam (who independently discovered Raman scattering of light together with Landsberg at the same time as Raman and Krishnan). Tamm, with Pavel Cherenkov (1904–1990) and Ilya Frank (1908–1990), was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1958 for the discovery and the interpretation of Cherenkov–Vavilov radiation. He also suggested the idea (later developed by Yukawa into a theory of meson forces) that proton–neutron interactions can be described as an exchange of force transmitted by a yet unknown massive particle (Tamm 1934). Tamm was always interested in biology and was close to several prominent Russian biologists. Thus, Tamm understood the situation in biology in the USSR. His participation in 1948–1953 in the Soviet nuclear program [with his graduate student Andrey Sakharov (1921–1989) who succeeded him] gave him weight in the eyes of the Soviet authorities, and a close acquaintance with the leaders of the nuclear program was important later.

Figure 4.

L.A. Blumenfeld and I.E. Tamm. Moscow, Department of biophysics of the MSU Physics Faculty, 1961. Photo by S.E. Shnoll. Source: the archive of the Department of biophysics of the MSU PF.

Tamm probably began speaking publicly in support of genetics as early as in 1949–1950 (M.B. Chernenko, personal communication). After 1954, his activity in rehabilitating genetics became constant and persistent, stimulated by progress in molecular biology abroad. Access to foreign literature, including scientific literature, was restricted in the USSR from the late 1940s [after the trial of Roskin and Kliueva (Krementsov 1995)], and exchanges of scientific information with “capitalist bloc” countries were almost completely stopped. (Reading foreign scientists’ papers was considered evidence of lack of patriotism and “kowtowing to the West,” while publishing results abroad was tantamount to giving national secrets to the enemy.) However, after 1953, the “iron curtain” regime began to soften. Moreover, in 1953, Tamm became an academician after successful tests of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Among academicians’ privileges was the right to subscribe to two foreign journals, and Tamm chose “Nature” and “Scientific American” (V.V. Borisov, personal communication). He could therefore read about the discovery of the DNA double helix (Watson and Crick 1953) and the idea of a genetic code (Gamow 1954). Tamm had met George Gamow (1904–1968) in Odessa in the early 1920s (Gamow 1970) and considered him talented (Frenkel 1995), so his paper immediately attracted Tamm’s attention. [Watson and Crick’s papers became known in the USSR only two years later, when Ivan Knunyants (1906–1990), who edited the journal “Chemical Science and Industry,” reprinted one paper (Crick 1954)]. Tamm enthusiastically retailed its contents to his colleagues and friends (Billig 1995; V.V. Borisov, personal communication).

Tamm was therefore convinced of the huge role of physics and chemistry in modern biology, realized the terrible backwardness of biology in the USSR, and made enormous efforts to revive it. He began lecturing to students and scientists about the molecular mechanism of heredity, the genetic code, and the successes of molecular biology: including at MSU (in the spring of 1955; Borisov, personal communication), at Kapitza’s seminar [in February 1956; (Rubinin 1990a, 1990b)], and Leningrad State University (LSU) [in October 1957; (Frenkel 1995)]. He also organized biology seminars in the AS Physics Institute (Bolotovskii 1995) and the Institute of Atomic Energy (IAE). Igor Kurchatov (1903–1960) “relying on his authority among the ministry administration and, despite protests from Khrushchev, organized a seminar at his Institute together with Tamm” (Golovin 1995; Khariton et al. 1995; Mokulsky 2003), at which “Soviet biologists (some of whom had previously lost their jobs for supporting ‘Mendelism–Morganism’) gave presentations and, based on foreign materials, told about nucleic acids, the DNA double helix, protein structure, etc.” (Mokulsky 2003).

Re-establishing scientific institutions for genetics. Establishment of a Radiobiological Department at the Institute of Atomic Energy

Seminars were not enough to revive genetics. A scientific institution was needed. After the August 1948 VASKhNIL meeting, no such institutions remained in the USSR. Since 1956–1957, several new scientific institutions started providing opportunities to work in genetics. In 1957, the AS Institute of Radiation and Physicochemical Biology (ARAS 1957a) was established (it is now the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology) and, in April 1959, started work with Vladimir Engelhardt (1894–1984) as a director. At the same time, the Siberian branch of the AS was established, and, on Lyapunov’s suggestion (Berg 1988), its head, the mathematician Mikhail Lavrentyev (1900–1980; Figure 3) organized the Novosibirsk Institute of Cytology and Genetics (ICG) (Zakharov et al. 2012) with the geneticist Nikolai Dubinin (1906/1907–1998) as a director (Josephson 1997; Shalimov 2008; Kupershtokh 2009). In June 1956, Gleb Frank (1904–1976), the director of the AS Biophysics Institute, initiated a laboratory of radiation genetics. By the early 1960s, more than a hundred people worked in it. Dubinin also led this research group. In 1957, Nikolai Semenov (1896–1986), the director of the AS Institute of Chemical Physics (ICP), invited Iosif Rapoport to head a group studying chemical genetics, which later became a full department (Dubovitsky 1992). In Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Mikhail Lobashev (1907–1971) returned to the LSU Department of Genetics and Breeding and became its head in 1957; it became a leading center for genetics (Inge-Vechtomov 2007). Other institutions in areas related to genetics included the Institute of Cytology (ARAS 1957b) in Leningrad (founded in 1957), the laboratories of protein structure in the Institute of Crystallography (Simonov and Feigin 1997) in Moscow (1959), and of natural polymers in the Institute of Macromolecular Compounds in Leningrad.

All these achievements remained insecure, however, e.g., the ICG was in a semi-legal position until 1964 (Kupershtokh 2009). In October 1959, the CPSU leader Nikita Khrushchev visited Novosibirsk and scolded its head Lavrentyev for supporting “Weissmanists–Morganists” (Berg 1988; Dobretsov and Marchuk 2000; Khrushchev 2006). Lavrentyev had to remove Dubinin from his directorship to save the Institute. It was possible to work on molecular biology only under cover of nuclear physicists, who were respected by the government and party leaders. At the end of 1957, Tamm tried “to interest Kurchatov in launching promising research employing geneticists “who have survived in our country” (Khariton et al. 1995). Appealing to the need for genetic research on the effects of radiation on living organisms, by August 1958, the high-ranking nuclear physicists, Kurchatov, Anatoly Aleksandrov (1903–1994), Tamm, and Viktor Gavrilov (1917–1973), received permission from the CPSU Central Committee and USSR Council of Ministers “to combine the efforts of physicists, chemists, and biologists to study biological processes” (Mokulsky 2003). Thus, Radiobiological Department (RBD) of the IAE appeared. However, despite the fact that all four had the highest awards and titles, they could not appoint the renowned geneticists who were known for their opposition to Lysenko (Aleksandrov 2002). However, in 1958–1961, this “oasis” had given shelter to some geneticists who, after the VASKhNIL August 1948 session, had been dismissed from the MSU Biology Faculty [Sos Alikhanyan (1906–1985) and Roman Khesin (1922–1985)] and the closed city of Ozersk’s branch of the Institute of Biophysics [Solomon Ardashnikov (1908–1963)] (IMG RAS 2013; Soyfer 2018). In 1978, the RBD became the AS Molecular Genetics Institute.

Revival of a full-fledged biological education. The “trial of the Lyapunov sisters”

Education in the field of modern biology (not only genetics), which would use the data and approaches of chemistry, physics, and mathematics, was also needed. After Kolmogorov’s 1940 article, Lysenko always argued that conclusions made with the help of mathematics had nothing to do with biological laws: “We biologists are not interested in mathematical calculations that confirm the statistical formulas of Mendelists which are useless for practice… We biologists do not want to submit to blind randomness (although mathematically possible) and assert that biological regularities cannot be replaced by mathematical formulae and curves” (Lysenko 1940). He tried to prohibit (or at least restrict) the use of mathematical methods in biology. When physics and chemistry started bringing evidence in favor of genetics in the mid-1950s, he started shutting biology off from them. After the VASKhNIL August 1948 session, he had the power to change the educational programs of all universities and faculties of biological and agricultural specialties and remove “undesirable” professors. To remedy this, all universities required education ministry decrees, which were impossible to obtain until 1964 because Khrushchev supported Lysenko.

A modest revival of genetics education began in the late 1950s. At LSU, Lobashev started a course on general genetics in February 1957 (Vatty et al. 1994; Inge-Vechtomov 2007), and in 1959, Ilya Zakharov (born 1934) and Konstantin Kvitko (1934 -2014) started a “Genetics of microorganisms” course (Vatty et al. 1994). At the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy in Moscow, Valery Soyfer (born 1936) organized public lectures by geneticists in autumn 1955 (Soyfer 2004). However, most MSU students were unaware of any genetics other than “Michurinist genetics” (N.N. Orlova, personal communication), and it was impossible to study non-Michurinist biology as proved by the “trial of the Lyapunov sisters” in autumn 1955–spring 1956.

In autumn 1955, the MSU Faculty of Biology’s party leadership learned about Lyapunov’s home seminar on genetics for his daughters and their fellow students (see above), and a scandal arose. Lyapunov’s daughters were accused of immorality, betraying the interests of Soviet science, and of corruption and subversive activities among students (E.A. and N.A. Lyapunov, personal communication). Their father was accused of meeting with the “fascist” Timofeeff-Ressovsky (personal archive of N.A. Lyapunova). They were severely reprimanded at Komsomol meetings, and the Faculty authorities tried to fail them on their exams. As was traditional, students themselves had to accuse Elena and Natalia at a Komsomol meeting and exclude them from the Komsomol, which automatically entailed expulsion from MSU. Five years earlier, this would also have been followed by being arrested (see Shnoll 2012 and Tumanova 1995). At the Komsomol meeting, the Dean silenced those who tried to protect Elena and Natalia, but there were too many of them, so all higher level and graduate students, who might make reasonable arguments, were removed from the meeting. The outcomes of such “discussions” were always guaranteed. However, providentially, this meeting took place on the day of Khrushchev’s famous condemnation of the “cult of personality” of Stalin at the 20th CPSU Congress. This shocked many in the country, including the organizers of the meeting, and the harassment of the two students who dared to study genetics ended (Pavlova 1998; Ramensky 2010; Shnoll 2012).

Unfortunately, many of the Lyapunov sisters’ fellow students supported the Faculty officials’ accusations and also identified their interest in genetics with treason, accusing them of “cooperation with Nazis” (personal archive N.A. Lyapunova). It was evidently impossible to hope for a quick revival of biology in the MSU Biology Faculty, in sad contrast to the Physics Faculty. Since the end of the 1940s, hatred for modern physics (“idealistic” quantum mechanics and relativity theory) had reigned at the Physics Faculty, due to processes analogous to the VASKhNIL August 1948 session. But student physicists protested (Andreev 2000; Gaponov et al. 2002), and the “student revolution” in 1953, when the Khrushchev thaw was just beginning, led to recognition of modern physics and the renewal of educational programs and teaching staff.

This is probably why Tamm, Lyapunov, and Alexander Shalnikov (1905–1986) asked the MSU rector Ivan Petrovsky (1901–1973) to create a Department in the Physics Faculty where students could study modern biology, including molecular biology, using physical and mathematical approaches. The new “Biophysics” specialty started in February 1958 (Shnoll 2012; Borisov 2003). A year later, Lev Blumenfeld (1921–2002; Figure 4) became its head, at Tamm’s suggestion. Natalia Lyapunova later taught biology to its students. Among the first graduates was Anatoly Zhabotinsky (1938–2008) (Shnoll 2009), later known for the oscillating Belousov–Zhabotinsky chemical reaction, the geneticists Valery Ivanov (1939–2012) (Frank-Kamenetskii et al. 2013) and Georgy Gursky (born 1938) (Zasedatelev et al. 1974), and the current director of the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Alexander Makarov (born 1950) (Adzhubei et al. 2013).

The attempts of nationwide rehabilitation of genetics: the “Letter of three hundred”

However, these “local” achievements did not lift the official national interdict on work on genetics. In October 1955, a huge advance was the “Letter of three hundred” to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The authors described the harm done by the Lysenko affair and demanded ending support for it and allowing biology to develop freely. Earlier appeals in the post-war period until August 1948 [e.g., of Peter Konstantinov (1877–1959), Peter Lisitsyn (1877–1948), E.N. Radaeva, Iosif Rapoport, Dmitry Sabinin, Anton Zhebrak (Soyfer 2002), Sos Alikhanyan (Esakov et al. 1991b)] had no chance of success, although all sane biologists were aware of Lysenko’s falsifications. After the VASKhNIL session, only the most fearless scientists dared to write such letters [thus, Vladimir Efroimson (1908–1989) was arrested after he sent a detailed analysis of Lysenko’s falsifications to the CPSU Central Committee in 1948 (Soyfer 2002; Shnoll 2012)].

The “Letter of three hundred” was written by Leningrad biologists Daniil Lebedev (1914/1915–2006), Nina Chuksanova, Yury Olenov (1907–1977), and Vladimir Aleksandrov (1906–1995) and supported by the director of the Komarov Botanical Institute, Pavel Baranov. Non-biologists, including geologists, paleontologists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians signed, though this was still risky. In December 1955, an additional list of signatures was sent. Nineteen mathematicians, including the most prominent, wrote separately supporting the demands. They emphasized Lysenkoists’ harmful refusal to allow statistical methods in biological research. A final total of 297 people signed appeals to the country’s leadership asking them to stop supporting Lysenko and legalize genetics in the USSR (Zakharov et al. 2005). The AS President Alexander Nesmeyanov (1899–1980) and the head of the nuclear program Igor Kurchatov, as the high-ranking members of the CPSU, could not sign the letter, though Kurchatov expressed his support in a personal conversation with Khrushchev. However, Khrushchev, who was outraged by the letter, replied: “This is a matter that we understand better than you, and we should take care of it. So stay out of our business!” (Aleksandrov 2002). Nesmeyanov (2018) reported being told: “don’t touch my Lysenko, or heads will roll!.”

However, some minor concessions were made. At the end of 1955, Vladimir Engelhardt (the first director of the AS Institute of Molecular Biology) replaced Alexander Oparin (1894–1980; an active Lysenko supporter) as head of the AS Department of Biological Sciences. In April 1956, Lysenko was removed from the VASKhNIL presidency. For the next three or four years, these changes gave a respite to genetics.

However, teaching and research in the field of genetics were still not officially “allowed,” and continued to be semiclandestine. The error of the authorities in supporting Lysenko’s ideas was not yet publicly recognized. Soon a counterreaction started. In early 1959, chief editor, Sukachev, and the entire editorial board of the “Botanical Journal” were replaced by Lysenkoists for publishing criticisms of Lysenko. In the same year, the head of the AS Department of Biological Sciences, Engelhardt, was also removed (Soyfer 2002). Two years later, Lysenko again became president of the VASKhNIL. In early 1961, an “Intercollegiate conference on experimental genetics” was organized in Leningrad by Lobashev, but was canceled by a telegram from the Ministry of education a day before opening (Inge-Vechtomov 2007). In 1963, the staff of Lobashev’s Department of Genetics and Breeding at LSU published a textbook on genetics. As a result, the Department was nearly closed and only the removal of Khrushchev saved it (Inge-Vechtomov 2007).

Nikolai Semenov’s attempts to soften Lysenko’s regime

One of the highest-ranking and consistent fighters for the rehabilitation of genetics in the USSR was Nikolai Semenov (Figure 3), a student of Abram Ioffe (1880–1960), whose scientific career started in physics. In 1927–1928, Semenov discovered branched chain chemical reactions, for which he was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize (which was recognized in the USSR by then) in chemistry. In 1940s, he was attacked by Nikolai Akulov (1900–1976), who claimed the laurels of Lysenko (Goldanskii 1997; Zaitseva and Homburg 2005). Although Semenov was needed for the Soviet nuclear program and hence was not repressed or dismissed, he experienced the Soviet authorities’ support for pseudosciences. Probably this, along with his broad scientific interests, made him become involved in the defense of genetics after the mid-1950s. By that time, his status in the USSR was very high, which allowed him to invite Iosif Rapoport (the discoverer of chemical mutagenesis) to the ICP to organize work on chemical genetics (Blokh 2005), although it took much effort to achieve this, due to the objections of the local communist authorities (Dubovitskii 1992).

In 1959, Semenov used the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Lenin’s book “Materialism and Empirio-criticism” as an occasion to speak out in defense of genetics in the ICP (ARAS 1959, pp. 100–143). He tried to politely use philosophical arguments against Lysenko. In the issue, the help of his professional philosopher son, Yuri Semenov, was essential (M.B. Berkinblit, personal communication). Thus, he tried to refute Lysenko’s major claims that: (1) the theory of genes is idealistic”; (2) physics and chemistry are inapplicable to the study of biological processes; (3) “Michurinist biology” and genetics are irreconcilable; and (4) the experimental results obtained by Lysenko’s opponents should not be recognized.

All Semenov’s criticisms of Lysenko used a gentle tone and concerned only certain propositions while “the conclusions of Lysenko <…> cannot be denied in principle” (ARAS 1959, p. 137). At this time when Lysenko was regaining strength, such caution was probably necessary, indicating that the situation with genetics in the USSR was still far from normal.

Publications against Lysenkoism after Khrushchev’s resignation

It was only after Khrushchev was removed in October 1964 that major change in biology in the country became possible. First, the AS which dared not to support Lysenko was saved from destruction. The thing is, in June 1964, at the Academy of Sciences (AS) elections, Lysenko’s henchman Nikolai Nuzhdin (1904–1972) was not elected despite being previously approved by the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee. This angered Khrushchev who called it “interference of the Academy in politics” and declared: “We will disperse the Academy of Sciences to hell” (Afiani and Ilizarov 1999). (This situation recurred later in AS history.)

Further, starting at the end of October 1964, articles about genetics, and even criticizing “Michurinist biology,” began appearing in Soviet newspapers and magazines. First were articles by biologists, including Rapoport, Vorontsov, Medvedev, Dubinin, and Belyaev, and by journalists and other writers—first of all, Dudintsev, Pisarzhevsky, and Agranovsky (Graham 1992; Soyfer 2002; Vorontsov 2004; Kupershtokh 2009). However, the articles remained very cautious, and Lysenko’s name was rarely mentioned (Soyfer 2002). In this situation, Semenov (already vice president of the AS) decided to critically review the methods and results of the Lysenko’s “school.” Three biologists Mikhail Berkinblit (born 1929), Sergei Kovalev (1930–2021), and Levon Chailakhyan (1928–2009) [one of whom, Kovalev, later participated actively in the USSR human rights movement (Kowaljow 1997)] helped Semenov to gather reliable material for the review.

Despite Lysenko’s obvious scientific failings, Semenov experienced difficulties publishing his article. It was submitted to and initially accepted by Pravda (an official mouthpiece of the party), but was removed from the newspaper a few hours before the issue was published (Berkinblit et al. 1993). At that time, such decisions were the responsibility of Mikhail Suslov, one of the CPSU leaders, who probably decided to avoid publishing material which could compromise the Party (M.B. Berkinblit, personal communication). Only a few months later, in April 1965, Semenov finally published the article in “Nauka i zhizn” (“Science and life”), a popular science magazine (Semenov 1965).

The Academy of Sciences 1965 General Assembly and the official rehabilitation of genetics in the USSR

Finally, the long-awaited official rehabilitation of genetics occurred. In January 1965, the AS General Biology section did not reelect Lysenko as director of the Institute of Genetics (ARAS 1965a) which he had headed for 25 years after Vavilov’s arrest. Later, the Institute was dissolved, and a new Institute of General Genetics developed from some of its former laboratories, plus the radiation genetics laboratory of Frank’s Institute of Biophysics. In 1966, Dubinin was appointed a director of the new Institute (ARAS 1966a, p. 46; ARAS 1966b, p. 196). In February 1965, the AS president, physicist Mstislav Keldysh (1911–1978), emphasized the need for physicists, chemists, and mathematicians to work with biologists to develop biology, as elsewhere in the world (ARAS 1965b, p. 14). Moreover, he mentioned Vavilov’s huge contributions to biology in the USSR (after many years when his name was rarely mentioned) (ARAS 1965b, p. 15). At last, the truth could be told about the group of scientists headed by Lysenko, namely that they had “denied several important achievements in biological science, and introduced their own views, often not corresponding to experimental facts and the scientific state of the art.” Keldysh also repudiated the VASKhNIL August 1948 session, where “the most important achievements of genetics were denied, and an unsubstantiated concept of species and speciation, and a number of other unjustified ideas, was imposed.” Vladimir Sukachev (1880–1967), Gleb Frank, Boris Astaurov, Boris Bychowsky (1908–1974), and Anton Zhebrak also spoke in support.

The AS and science ministries announced new institutes and laboratories in genetic specialisms, and plans to establish an AS Scientific Council on genetics, a Genetics and Breeders Society, and to publish monographs on genetic problems. Curricula and textbooks for schools and universities were to be revised, and a meeting was planned to discuss the development of biological science (ARAS 1965a,b, pp. 15–20, 162). These promises were an unprecedented breath of freedom for biology in the USSR and gave hope for its revival. At least partially, they were soon fulfilled.

Unfortunately, however, all this remained almost unknown outside the AS. The chemist Ivan Knunyants and the physicist Mikhail Leontovich called on the General Assembly to publish the president’s report in the public press, but this was not done. The meeting resulted a resolution written in language described by the chemist Viktor Spitsyn as “Aesopian” (ARAS 1965b, p. 167). Apparently, there was still a fear of speaking too vociferously about the authorities’ past suppression of science and support for pseudoscience. The lack of publications about this AS meeting was partly compensated for by Semenov’s article (see above) two months later.

Thus, the authorities finally allowed the scientific community to recognize as incorrect previously imposed directives about biology. From this point on, the scientific community was allowed to use scientific rather than administrative methods. Although with a huge delay and not fully, a new period in Soviet science had begun.

Conclusions

Although Lysenkovschina is mostly associated with persecution of genetics, many related areas of biology (including cytology, the theory of evolution, and embryology) also suffered. In Astaurov’s words, genetics was only the “earthquake epicenter” (ARAS 1965b, p. 106). Moreover, Lysenko’s methods of fighting against opponents were employed in managing other disciplines in the USSR in the late 1940s–early 1950s, thus affecting almost all of the scientific community. The revival of genetics became possible due to changes in the country’s leadership in 1953 and 1964, and a gradual softening of the regime that continued until 1968. However, it still required the efforts (sometimes heroic) of many people, including both geneticists and others. The change to “normal science” was a credit to the entire scientific community—at least to the part of it that remained true to the principles of scientific ethics. Here, we have mentioned only a few famous scientists who made the most noteworthy contributions, although this long struggle deserves much more detailed description.

Conflicts of interest

The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.