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Science and Politics in the U.S.S.R.: The Genetics Debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Pamela N. Wrinch
Pamela N. Wrinch
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

In the Soviet Union, views on all intellectual subjects—the social sciences, philosophy, and even the biological and physical sciences—are frequently regarded as expressions of political views. As a consequence, all intellectual fields are considered appropriate arenas for the struggle against “reaction” and other supposed manifestations of “bourgeois” ideology. To consider science a-political and supra-national, or to speak approvingly of “world science” or “world culture,” is to subscribe to the “bourgeois” ideology of “cosmopolitism”—an ideology which is assumed by virtue of its universalist emphasis to deprecate the contributions to culture made by individual nations.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , July 1951 , pp. 486 - 519
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1951

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References

1 All page numbers in parentheses refer to the English translation of the Proceedings of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the U.S.S.R., July 31-August 7, 1948, Complete Stenographic Report, New York, International Publishers, 1949.

2 Lenin, Vladimir I., Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (Collected Works, Vol. XIII), New York, International Publishers, 1927, p. 317.Google Scholar All italics mine unless other wise indicated.

3 Mal'tsev, V., “Problema neobkhodimost is luchainosti v uchenii Charl'sa Darvina,” Pod Znamenem Marksisma, 1939, No. 9, p. 90.Google Scholar Translation mine.

4 Ibid, p. 91. Translation mine.

5 For example, Mitin, pp. 263, 274; Zavadovsky, p. 252.

6 Lenobl, G., “American Slander and Soviet Truth,” Novy Mir, 1948, No. 10Google Scholar, as translated in the Current Digest of the Soviet Press (hereafter referred to as Digest), I, No. 1 (Feb. 1, 1949), p. 32.

7 Lesuchevsky, N., “A Tale about Truth and Ignoble Falsehood,” Znamya, 1949Google Scholar, No. 9, as translated in Digest, I, No. 1 (Feb. 1, 1949), p. 21.

8 Mal'tsev, , loc. cit., p. 90.Google Scholar Translation mine.

9 Zhebrak, Anton R., “Soviet Biology,” Science, CII, No. 2649 (Oct. 5, 1945)Google Scholar, and Laptev, I., “Anti-patriotic Acts under the Guise of ‘Scientific’ Criticism,” Journal of Heredity, XXXIX, No. 1 (January 1948), p. 20.Google Scholar

10 Rumyantsev, V. M., ‘The Great Transformer of Nature, I. V. Michurin,” U.S.S.R. Information Bulletin, X, No. 12 (June 23, 1950), p. 357.Google Scholar

11 Zhdanov, Yuri, “Letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: to Comrade Stalin,” as translated in Zirkle, Conway (ed.), Death of a Science in Russia, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949, p. 269.Google Scholar However, Lysenko does not enjoy the elevated status of Darwin and Michurin, since his extensive works are quoted only infrequently by Soviet biologists. It may be that the Party is hesitant to endorse some of the theoretical speculations of Lysenko, as it accepted in 1948 the recantations of certain biologists who had opposed him, wherein, although Lysenko was accepted as the leader of the Michurin trend, his theories were touched on inhighly conditional language. Yuri Zhdanov's recantation stated explicitly: “I do not agree with some of the theoretical speculations of Lysenko [denial of intraspecies struggle and mutual aid, underestimation of the internal specificity of an organism].” (Ibid., p. 269.)

12 Ibid., p. 270.

13 Mitin, M., “Za peredovuiu sovetskuiu geneticheskuiu nauku,” Pod Znamenem Martsistna, 1939, No. 10, p. 150.Google Scholar Translation mine.

14 Lysenko, Trofim D., Heredity and Its Variability, New York, King's Crown Press, 1946, p. 2.Google Scholar

15 My alteration of the translation, p. 614.

16 Lenin, , op. cit., p. 264.Google Scholar

17 Novinsky, I. I., “Principles of Michurin-Lysenko Biology,” Voprosy Filosofii, 1949Google Scholar, No. 1, as translated in Digest, II, No. 5 (March 18, 1950), p. 7.

18 Ibid., p. 8.

19 “Protiv burzhuaznoi ideologii kosmopolitizma,” Voprosy Filosofii, 1948, No. 2, p. 23. Translation mine.

20 Laptev, , op. cit., p. 20.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., p. 18.

22 Lysenko, Trofim D., “On the Tasks of Agricultural Science,” Izvestia, Nov. 2, 1948Google Scholar, as translated in Digest, I, No. 45 (Dec. 6, 1949), p. 48.

23 Lenin, , op. cit., p. 264.Google Scholar

24 Ibid, p. 131.

25 Stoletov, V. N., “Printsipi uchenia I. V. Michurina,” Voprosy Filosofii, 1948, No. 2, p. 155.Google Scholar Translation mine.

26 Western geneticists maintain that if the gene does not exist, something very like it does, and that therefore it is useful as an analytical concept.

27 Modifications are differences in organisms which are not due to differences in hereditary constitution, but rather to differences in environment, habits and activity. Modifications do not affect the reproductive cells which carry the hereditary material.

28 Lysenko, , Heredity and Its Variability, cited above, p. 22.Google Scholar

29 Polyakov, I. M., Address at 1939 Conference on Genetics and Selection, Pod Znamenem Marksisma, 1939, No. 11, p. 176.Google Scholar

30 Western geneticists explain evolution on the basis of (a) mutations (changes in the hereditary constitution of organisms), and (b) natural selection. The environment plays a role in natural selection to the extent that it favors the survival of better adapted organisms over those less well adapted for survival in that particular environment.

31 “Soviet Science Willingly and Voluntarily Serves the People,” Pravda, Aug. 27, 1948, as translated in Zirkle, , op. cit., p. 291.Google Scholar

32 Zhdanov, , op. cit., p. 270.Google Scholar My modification of translation.

33 Novoe Vremya, 1949, No. 2, p. 10. Translation mine.

34 Glushkenko, I., “Reactionary Genetics in the Service of Imperialism,” Pravda, April 5, 1949Google Scholar, as translated in Digest, I, No. 14 (May 3, 1949), p. 55.

35 Nuzhdin, N. I., “Soviet Genetics: The Real Issue,” Nature, CLXV, No. 4201 (May 6, 1950), p. 706.Google Scholar

36 “Za rastsvet peredovoi sovetskoi biologicheskoi nauki,” Bolshevik, 1948, No. 15, p. 2. Translation mine.

37 “Torzhestvo sovetskoi biologicheskoi nauki,” Voprosy Filosofii, 1948, No. 2, p. 129. Translation mine.

38 Zirkle, , op. cit., p. 291.Google Scholar

39 Cf. Proceedings of the Lenin Academy, pp. 336–337.