ABOVE: Trofim Lysenko (left) and his audience at the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences meeting in Moscow in 1948.
COURTESY OF THE RUSSIAN STATE ARCHIVE OF FILM AND PHOTO DOCUMENTS
On July 31, 1948, a middle-aged man took his position behind a lectern at the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences meeting in Moscow and began a speech to hundreds of biologists, economists, and other specialists assembled for what promised to be a historic event. The address, entitled “The Situation in Biological Science,” was a tirade against the field of genetics, which the speaker declared to be pseudobiology, anti-Soviet, and counter to agricultural progress. The remarks carried authority, he advised listeners later in the meeting: “The Central Committee of the Communist Party has examined my report and approved it.”
Members of the audience, some of whom were prominent geneticists, were only too familiar with the speaker, Trofim Lysenko, and his ...
