KIRILL O. ROSSIANOV (Moscow, Russia)
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KIRILL O. ROSSIANOV (Moscow, Russia) STALIN AS LYSENKO'S EDITOR : RESHAPING POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN SOVIET SCIENCE* .Introduction: ... This article is devoted to the background of the session of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL) that was held from July 311 through August 7, 1948. This session ended in the rout.of genetics in the USSR and triggered similar campaigns in other sciences. Following the meeting, the Soviet system undertook the creation of its own, "new" kind of science which differed radically from world science. The possible reasons for the intervention by Soviet authorities in science have been repeatedly discussed in both Western and Soviet historical and scientific works.' But one question has remained unclear: to what extent were Stalin and other prominent Soviet political leaders personally involved in the organization of these campaigns? . The VASKhNIL session was convened quite suddenly and without the prior knowledge of most of its members. Evidently Trofim Lysenko - the president of the agriculture academy, the principal opponent of genetics, and the leader of the so-called new, "Michurinist" biology - had got some support from some political source. In his concluding remarks at the session, he declared his paper had been approved by the Central Committee of the * I gratefullyacknowledge the criticisms and comments on earlydrafts of this paperprovided by MarkAdams. His editorial advice was invaluable. I amalso indebted to DanielAlexandrow, Chris Feudtner,Douglas Weiner, and AlexanderWeisberg for adviceand manyuseful conerstions. l. P. S. Hudsonand R. H. Richens,The NewGenetics in the SovietUnion (Cambridge, Eng.: Schoolof Agriculture,1946); Conway Zirkle, Death of a Sciencein Russia:The Fate of Genetics as Describedin Pravda and Elsewhere(Philadelphia: Univ. of PennsylvaniaPress, 1949);Julian S. Huxley,Soviet Genetics and Wnrld Science:Lysenko and the Meaningof Heredity(London: Chatto and Windus. 1949);idem., Heredity. East and West:Lysenko and WorldScience (New York: H. Schuman,1949); Zhores A. Medvedev,The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko(New York: Columbia Univ.Press, 1969);David Joravsky,The Lysenko Affair(Chicago & London:Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970);Dominique Lecourt, LYSSENKO: Histoire réelle d'une "scienceProlitarienne" (Paris: FranqoisMaspero, 1976); Johann-Peter Regelmann, Die Geschichtedes Lyssenkoismus(Frankfurt am Main: Rita G. FischerVerlag, t 9$0);Valery N. Soifer, Vlust' i Nauka: Istoriia Razgroma Genetikiv SSSR(Power and Science.History of the Crash of SovietGenetics) (Tenafly, N.J.: Hermitage,1989). so Communist Party.2 But there was no corroboration of this claim from the Party itself. A few days after Stalin's death, in March 1953, Lysenko declared in a newspaper article in Pravda that it had been Stalin himself who had read and edited the original text of his talk at the 1948 sesion.3 But this claim was suspect: a critical campaign against Lysenko was unleashed during the last months of Stalin's life, so it is not clear whether Stalin's support of Lysenko was so absolute as Lysenko had claimed -- all the more so since the other witness had died. This specific question raises the larger issue of the extent to which these campaigns were actually controlled by political authorities. For example, it might well have been not Stalin, but some other memeber of members of the Politburo or the top Kremlin bureaucracy who may have orchestrated these campaigns. It has been well known for a long time that Andrei Zhdanov - the number two man in the Party in the postwar years and the offical in charge of Soviet science, ideology and culture - had launched a major campaign against Western trends in Soviet art, music, and literature beginning in 1946 (a cultural "pogrom" known in Russia and the West by his name, "Zhdanovshchina" ). So we know that such campaigns could be led by other Party leaders, and there has been great curiosity about Zhdanov's role in genetics, as well- as the possible relation of the Lysenko campaign to other contemporary attacks on culture. His role is especially problematic, however: as David Joravsky (and Zirkle before him) noted, Zhdanov certainly did not support Lysenko.4 These complication make the clarification of Stalin's pos- sible role even more important. This article presents some archival finds that go a long way to settling these questions. Opening the Soviet Archives: The discovery is best understood in the context of what was happening among younger historians of science in the USSR and in the Soviet archives after the initiation of glasnost'. Around 1988 an informal group of young researchers and graduate students associated with the Institute of History of Natural Science and Technology in Moscow and Leningrad began to organize itself.5 At this time, popular periodicals became preoccupied, even fixated, on - ... - - -.. -. - ... Z. "ConcludingRemarks by AcademicianT. D. Lysenko:"in The Situationin Biological Science:Proceedings of theLenin Academy of AgriculturalSciences of theUSSR. July 31-August 7,1948. CompleteStenographic Report (New York. International Publishers, i 949), 51.(Hereafter cited as The Situationin BiologicalScience.) 3. T. D. Lysenko,"Korifei nauki," Pravda, March8, 1953. ' 4. Joravsky,The Lysenko Affair, Zirkle, Death nf a Sciencein Russia. 5. Someof its members'findings and activitiesare summarizedin the Abstractsof the Second Conferenceon the Social Hisotry of Soviet Science.See Tezisyvtoroi konferentsiipo sozial' noi istorii sovetskoinauki. 2I-24 maia 1990 (Moscow:Institut istorii estestvoznaniiai tekhnikiAN SSSR, 1990). .