Trofim Lysenko

From 1955, hundreds of Soviet scientists called for an end to Lysenko's dominance. Although he lost the presidency of VASKhNIL, Nikita Khrushchev continued to support him. After Khrushchev's fall in October 1964, public criticism became possible, and Lysenko rapidly lost his decisive positions.

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Institutional responsibility

Agricultural programmes inspired by Lysenko were implemented on a large scale despite weak or negative experimental evidence. Historical literature attributes agricultural losses, wasted resources and, above all, lasting damage to Soviet biological sciences to Lysenkoism.

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Close aide

Following the 1948 session, genetics teaching and research were abolished or restricted to protected fields. Researchers lost their positions, and the USSR fell substantially behind in genetics, molecular biology and evolution.

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Under Lysenko's chairmanship and with Stalin's personal support, the Soviet agricultural academy's 1948 session declared Michurinist biology consistent with official doctrine. Stalin had personally reviewed and amended Lysenko's central speech.

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Directly implicated

Nikolai Vavilov, initially supportive of some of Lysenko's work, became one of his principal scientific opponents. Vavilov was arrested in 1940 and died of starvation in prison in 1943; numerous geneticists were also dismissed, imprisoned or executed during the purges.

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Political responsibility

Lysenko publicly attacked Mendelian genetics, chromosomes and the concept of genes, opposing his "Michurinist biology" to what he portrayed as sterile bourgeois science. His scientific discourse became increasingly intertwined with Soviet ideological rhetoric.

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Political responsibility

Lysenko became director of the USSR Academy of Sciences' Institute of Genetics, giving him considerable control over recruitment, research priorities and resources allocated to heredity research.

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Institutional responsibility

Lysenko became widely known for promising that treating seeds with cold and moisture could transform Soviet agricultural production. Vernalisation has a genuine physiological basis, but Lysenko extrapolated it into claims about crop yields and the inheritance of acquired characteristics that were not supported by rigorous, reproducible trials.

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Directly implicated