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{{Short description|Pseudoscientific Soviet biological theory}}
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[[File:Lysenko with Stalin.gif|thumb|upright=1.35 |[[Trofim Lysenko|Lysenko]] speaking at the [[Moscow Kremlin|Kremlin]] in 1935; behind him are (left to right) [[Stanislav Kosior]], [[Anastas Mikoyan]], [[Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev|Andrei Andreev]] and [[Joseph Stalin]]]]
'''Lysenkoism'''{{efn|{{langx|ru|лысенковщина|lysenkovshchina}} {{IPA|ru|lɨˈsʲenkəfɕːɪnə|}}; {{langx|uk|лисенківщина|lysenkivščyna}} {{IPA|uk|lɪˈsɛnkiu̯ʃtʃɪnɐ|}}}} was a political campaign led by the Soviet [[biologist]] [[Trofim Lysenko]] against [[genetics]] and science-based [[agriculture]] in the mid-20th century, rejecting [[natural selection]] in favour of a form of [[Lamarckism]], as well as expanding upon the techniques of [[vernalization]] and [[grafting]].

More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were dismissed or imprisoned, and numerous scientists were executed in the Soviet campaign to [[Suppressed research in the Soviet Union|suppress scientific opponents]].<ref name="gar57">{{cite book |last=Gardner |first=Martin |author-link=Martin Gardner |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TwP3SGAUsnkC&q=gardner%20fads%20and%20fallacies&pg=PP1 |title=Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science |publisher=Dover Books |year=1957 |isbn=978-0486131627 |location=New York |pages=140–151}}</ref><ref name=":2"/><ref name="Soyfer Nature"/><ref name=":3"/> The president of the Soviet Agriculture Academy, [[Nikolai Vavilov]], who had been Lysenko's mentor, but later denounced him, was sent to prison and died there, while Soviet genetics research was effectively destroyed.<ref name="Soyfer Nature"/><ref name=":3"/> Research and teaching in the fields of [[neurophysiology]], [[cell biology]], and many other biological disciplines were harmed or banned.

The government of the [[Soviet Union]] (USSR) supported the campaign, and [[Joseph Stalin]] personally edited a speech by Lysenko in a way that reflected his support for what would come to be known as Lysenkoism, despite his skepticism toward Lysenko's assertion that all science is class-orientated in nature. Lysenko served as the director of the USSR's [[VASKhNIL|Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences]]. Other countries of the [[Eastern Bloc]] including the [[People's Republic of Poland]], the [[Republic of Czechoslovakia (1948–1960)|Republic of Czechoslovakia]], and the [[German Democratic Republic]] accepted Lysenkoism as the official "new biology", to varying degrees, as did the [[Science in the People's Republic of China|People's Republic of China]] for some years.

==Context==
{{Further|Lamarckism|Mendelian inheritance}}

[[File:Weismann's Germ Plasm.svg|thumb|upright=1.5|[[August Weismann]]'s [[germ plasm]] theory stated that the hereditary material, the germ plasm, is transmitted only by the reproductive organs. [[Somatic cell]]s (of the body) [[embryology|develop afresh]] in each generation from the germ plasm. There is no way that changes made to somatic cells can affect the next generation, contrary to [[Lamarckism]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Huxley |first=Julian |author-link=Julian Huxley |year=1942 |title=Evolution, the Modern Synthesis |page=17 |title-link=Evolution, the Modern Synthesis}}</ref>]]

[[Mendelian genetics]], the science of heredity, developed into an experimentally based field of biology at the start of the 20th century through the work of [[August Weismann]], [[Thomas Hunt Morgan]], and others, building on the rediscovered work of [[Gregor Mendel]]. They showed that the characteristics of an [[organism]] are carried by inherited [[gene]]s, which were located on [[chromosome]]s in each cell's [[Cell nucleus|nucleus]]. Genes can be affected by random changes ([[mutation]]s), and can be shuffled and recombined during [[sexual reproduction]], but are otherwise passed on unchanged from parent to [[offspring]]. Beneficial changes can propagate through a population by [[natural selection]] or, in agriculture, by [[plant breeding]].<ref name="Leone 1952"/>

Some Marxists, however, perceived a fissure between Marxism and [[Darwinism]]. Specifically, the issue is that while the "struggle for survival" in Marxism applies to a social class as a whole (the [[Class conflict|class struggle]]), the struggle for survival in Darwinism is decided by individual [[Random Mutation|random mutations]]. This was deemed a [[Liberalism|liberal]] doctrine, against the Marxist framework of "immutable laws of history" and the spirit of [[collectivism]]. In contrast, [[Lamarckism]] proposed that an organism can somehow pass on characteristics that it has acquired during its lifetime to its offspring, implying that changing the body can affect the genetic material in the germ line. To these Marxists, a "neo-Lamarckism" was deemed more compatible with Marxism.<ref>{{cite web |author-link=Karl Kautsky |date=1989 |editor-last=Kautsky |editor-first=John H. |title=Karl Kautsky: Nature and Society (1929) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1929/12/naturesoc.htm |access-date=21 February 2020 |website=www.marxists.org |quote=Many saw agreement between Darwin and Marx in that each of them regarded struggle as the motor of development, one the class struggle, the other the struggle for existence. But there is a great difference between these two kinds of struggle! ... For Marx, the mass is the carrier of development, for Darwin it is the individual, though not as exclusively as for many of his disciples... A quite individualist conception which corresponded very well to the thought of liberalism that was all-powerful in Darwin’s time and which was therefore easily accepted... A materialist neo-Lamarckism, freed not only of all of the naivete of its origins but also of all mysticism, which some of its followers seek to inject into it, seemed to me to assert in biology the same principles that Marx had revealed for society in the materialist conception of history.}}</ref><!--<ref name="Kolakowski 2005">{{cite book |last=Kolakowski |first=Leszek |title=[[Main Currents of Marxism]] |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2005 |isbn=978-0393329438 |pages= }}</ref>--><ref name="Leone 1952" /><ref name="Ghiselin1994">{{cite journal |last1=Ghiselin |first1=Michael T. |author-link=Michael T. Ghiselin |title=The Imaginary Lamarck: A Look at Bogus "History" in Schoolbooks |url=http://www.textbookleague.org/54marck.htm |journal=The Textbook Letter |issue=September–October 1994 |date=1994 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001012042617/http://www.textbookleague.org/54marck.htm |archive-date=12 October 2000 |url-status=usurped |access-date=12 December 2019 }}</ref>

[[Marxism–Leninism]], which became the official ideology in Stalin's USSR, incorporated Darwinian evolution as a foundational doctrine, providing a scientific basis for its [[Marxist–Leninist atheism|state atheism]]. Initially, the Lamarckian principle of inheritance of acquired traits was considered a legitimate part of evolutionary theory, and Darwin himself supported it.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kováč |first=Ladislav |date=2019 |title=Lamarck and Darwin revisited |journal=EMBO Reports |language=en |volume=20 |issue=4 |doi=10.15252/embr.201947922 |issn=1469-221X |pmc=6446194 |pmid=30842100}}</ref> Although the Mendelian view had largely replaced Lamarckism in western biology by 1925,<ref name="Casp" /> it persisted in Soviet doctrine. Besides the fervent "old style" Darwinism of Marx and Engels which included elements of Lamarckism, two fallacious experimental results supported it in the USSR. First, [[Ivan Pavlov]], who discovered conditioned reflex, announced in 1923<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pawlow |first=I. P. |date=1923-11-09 |title=New Researches on Conditioned Reflexes |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.58.1506.359 |journal=Science |language=en |volume=58 |issue=1506 |pages=359–361 |doi=10.1126/science.58.1506.359 |pmid=17837325 |bibcode=1923Sci....58..359P |issn=0036-8075 |quote=... conditioned reflexes, i.e., the highest nervous activity, are inherited. At present some experiments on white mice have been completed. ... Three hundred times was it necessary to combine the feeding of the mice with the ringing of the bell in order to accustom them to run to the feeding place on hearing the bell ring. ... The fourth generation required only 10 lessons. ... I think it very probable that after some time a new generation of mice will run to the feeding place on hearing the bell with no previous lesson.|url-access=subscription }}</ref> that it can be inherited in mice;<ref name="Casp" /> and his subsequent withdrawal of this claim was ignored by Soviet ideologists.<ref name="Casp" /> Second, [[Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin|Ivan Michurin]] interpreted his work on plant breeding as proof of the inheritance of acquired traits.<ref name="Casp">{{cite journal|last1=Caspari|first1=E. W.|last2=Marshak|first2=R. E.|date=16 July 1965|title=The Rise and Fall of Lysenko|journal=Science|publisher=New Series|volume=149|issue=3681|pages=275–278|doi=10.1126/science.149.3681.275|jstor=1715945|pmid=17838094|bibcode=1965Sci...149..275C}}</ref> Michurin advocated directed plant breeding by environmental control: "We cannot wait for favors from nature: we must wrest them from her".<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Kepley |first=Vance |date=July 1980 |title=The Scientist as Magician: Dovzhenko's Michurin and the Lysenko Cult |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01956051.1980.10661859 |journal=Journal of Popular Film and Television |language=en |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=19–26 |doi=10.1080/01956051.1980.10661859 |issn=0195-6051|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[Kliment Timiryazev]], a popularizer of science in Russia, had sympathies with communism, and allied with the new Soviet republic. This made his views more orthodox and widely known. When gene theory rose in early 1900s, some gene theorists promoted saltative [[mutationism]] as an alternative to gradualist Darwinism, and Timiriazev vigorously argued against it. Timiryazev's views influenced many, including Michurin.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dobzhansky |first=Theodosius |date=May 1949 |title=The Suppression of a Science |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.1949.11457065 |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |language=en |volume=5 |issue=5 |pages=144–146 |doi=10.1080/00963402.1949.11457065 |bibcode=1949BuAtS...5e.144D |issn=0096-3402|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[Soviet agriculture]] around 1930 was in a crisis due to Stalin's forced [[collectivisation of farms]] and extermination of [[kulak]] farmers. The resulting [[Soviet famine of 1932–1933]] provoked the government to search for a technical solution which would maintain their central political control.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ellman |first=Michael |date=June 2007 |title=Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited |url=http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/famine/ellman1933.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=59 |issue=4 |pages=663–693 |doi=10.1080/09668130701291899 |s2cid=53655536 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200131150912if_/http://www.paulbogdanor.com:80/left/soviet/famine/ellman1933.pdf |archive-date=2020-01-31 |access-date=2025-11-14}}</ref>

==In the Soviet Union==

===Lysenko's claims===

[[File:Trofim Lysenko portrait.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Lysenko in 1938]]

In 1928, rejecting [[natural selection]] and [[Mendelian genetics]], [[Trofim Lysenko]] claimed to have developed agricultural techniques which could radically increase crop yields. These included [[vernalization]], species transformation (one species turning into another), [[inheritance of acquired characteristics]], and vegetative hybridization (see below).<ref name="Leone 1952">{{cite journal |last1=Leone |first1=Charles A. |title=Genetics: Lysenko versus Mendel |journal=Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science |volume=55 |issue=4 |year=1952 |pages=369–380 |issn=0022-8443 |doi=10.2307/3625986 |jstor=3625986}}</ref> He claimed in particular that vernalization, exposing [[wheat]] seeds to humidity and low temperature, could greatly increase [[crop yield]]. He claimed further that he could transform one [[species]], ''[[Triticum durum]]'' (durum spring wheat), into ''[[Triticum vulgare]]'' (common autumn wheat), through 2 to 4 years of autumn planting. This species transition he claimed to occur without an intermediate form.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last=Dobzhansky |first=Theodosius |date=February 1952 |title=I Lysenko's "Michurinist" Genetics |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.1952.11457270 |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |language=en |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=40–44 |doi=10.1080/00963402.1952.11457270 |bibcode=1952BuAtS...8b..40D |issn=0096-3402|url-access=subscription }}</ref> However, this was already known to be impossible since ''T. durum'' is a [[tetraploid]] with 28 chromosomes (4 sets of 7), while ''T. vulgare'' is [[hexaploid]] with 42 chromosomes (6 sets).<ref name="Leone 1952"/> This objection did not faze Lysenko, as he claimed that the chromosome number changed as well.<ref name=":7" />

Lysenko claimed that the concept of a gene was a "bourgeois invention", and he denied the presence of any "immortal substance of heredity" or "clearly defined species", which he claimed belong to [[Theory of forms|Platonic]] metaphysics rather than strictly materialist Marxist science. Instead, he proposed a "Marxist genetics" postulating an unlimited possibility of transformation of living organisms through environmental changes in the spirit of Marxian [[Dialectical materialism|dialectical transformation]], and in parallel to the Party's program of creating the [[New Soviet man|New Soviet Man]] and subduing nature for his benefit. Lysenko refused to admit [[Evolution|random mutations]], stating that "science is the enemy of randomness".<ref name=":4">{{cite book |last=Kolakowski |first=Leszek |title=[[Main Currents of Marxism]] |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2005 |isbn=978-0393329438}}</ref>

[[File:Lysenkoist Vegetative Hybridisation.svg|thumb|Lysenkoist ''vegetative hybridisation'' implying an effect of scion on stock  when a fruit tree is [[Grafting|grafted]]. Lysenko's Lamarckian conception is very weakly justified by the modern theory of [[horizontal gene transfer]].<ref name="LiuLi2009"/>]]

Lysenko further claimed that Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics occurred in plants,<!--''Soviet Biology'', 1948, page 36--> as in the "eyes" of potato [[tuber]]s, though the genetic differences in these plant parts were already known to be non-heritable [[somatic mutation]]s.<ref name="Leone 1952"/><ref name="Asseyeva 1927">{{cite journal |last1=Asseyeva |first1=T. |title=Bud mutations in the potato and their chimerical nature |journal=Journal of Genetics |date=1927 |volume=19 |pages=1–28 |doi=10.1007/BF02983115 |s2cid=6762283 |url=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2FBF02983115.pdf}}</ref> He also claimed that when a tree is [[Grafting|graft]]ed, the [[Scion (grafting)|scion]] permanently changes the heritable characteristics of the [[Stock (grafting)|stock]]. In modern biological theory, such a change is theoretically possible through [[horizontal gene transfer]]; however, there is no evidence that this actually occurs, and Lysenko rejected the mechanism of genes entirely.<ref name="LiuLi2009"/>

===Rise===

[[Isaak Izrailevich Prezent]], a biologist politically out of favour, brought Lysenko to public attention. He portrayed Lysenko as a [[genius]] who had developed a revolutionary technique which could lead to the triumph of Soviet agriculture, a thrilling possibility for a Soviet society suffering through Stalin's famines. Lysenko became a favorite of the [[Propaganda in the Soviet Union|Soviet propaganda]] machine, which overstated his successes, trumpeted his faked experimental results, and omitted any mention of his failures.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rispoli |first=Giulia |title=The Role of Isaak Prezent in the Rise and Fall of Lysenkoism |journal=Ludus Vitalis |date=2014 |volume=22 |issue=42 |url=http://www.ludus-vitalis.org/ojs/index.php/ludus/article/view/4 |access-date=2019-12-12 |archive-date=2019-12-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191212113106/http://www.ludus-vitalis.org/ojs/index.php/ludus/article/view/4 |url-status=dead }}</ref> State media published enthusiastic articles such as "Siberia is transformed into a land of orchards and gardens" and "Soviet people change nature", while anyone opposing Lysenko was presented as a defender of "[[mysticism]], [[obscurantism]] and backwardness."<ref name=":0" />   

Lysenko's political success was mostly due to his appeal to the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] and [[Soviet ideology]]. His attack on the "[[bourgeois pseudoscience]]" of modern genetics and the proposal that plants can rapidly adjust to a changed environment suited the [[Class conflict|ideological battle]] in both agriculture and Soviet society.<ref>{{cite book |last=Geller |first=Mikhail |title=Cogs in the wheel : the formation of Soviet man |publisher=Knopf |year=1988 |isbn=978-0394569260}}</ref><ref name="LiuLi2009" /> Following the disastrous [[Collectivization in the Soviet Union|collectivization efforts of the late 1920s]], Lysenko's new methods were seen by Soviet officials as paving the way to an "agricultural revolution." Lysenko himself was from a peasant family and was an enthusiastic advocate of [[Leninism]].<ref name="Graham1993">{{cite book |last=Graham |first=Loren R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m_wPpj64GqMC&pg=PA127 |title=Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-521-28789-0 |pages=124–128}}</ref><ref name="LiuLi2009">{{cite journal |last1=Liu |first1=Yongsheng |last2=Li |first2=Baoyin |last3=Wang |first3=Qinglian |title=Science and politics |journal=EMBO Reports |volume=10 |issue=9 |year=2009 |pages=938–939 |issn=1469-221X |doi=10.1038/embor.2009.198|pmid=19721459 |pmc=2750069 }}</ref> The Party-controlled newspapers applauded Lysenko's practical "success" and questioned the motives of his critics, ridiculing the timidity of academics who urged the patient, impartial observation required for science.<ref name="Graham1993" /><ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019"/> Lysenko was admitted into the hierarchy of the Communist Party, and was put in charge of agricultural affairs. 

He used his position to denounce biologists as "[[Drosophila melanogaster|fly]]-lovers and people haters",<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=xBvbQgWtgjsC&pg=PA149 ''Epistemology and the Social''], Evandro Agazzi, Javier Echeverría, Amparo Gómez Rodríguez, Rodopi, 2008, "Philosophy", p. 149</ref> and to decry traditional biologists as "[[wrecking (Soviet crime)|wreckers]]" working to sabotage the Soviet economy. He denied the distinction between theoretical and [[applied biology]], and rejected general methods such as control groups and statistics:<ref>{{Cite web|last=Faulk|first=Chris|date=2013-06-21|title=Lamarck, Lysenko, and Modern Day Epigenetics|url=http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/06/21/lamarck-lysenko-and-modern-day-epigenetics/|access-date=2020-06-06|website=Mind the Science Gap|language=en-US}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=We biologists do not take the slightest interest in mathematical calculations, which confirm the useless statistical formulae of the Mendelists … We do not want to submit to blind chance … We maintain that biological regularities do not resemble mathematical laws.|author=|title=|source=}}

Lysenko presented himself as a follower of [[Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin]], a well-known and well-liked Soviet [[horticulture|horticulturist]], but unlike Michurin, Lysenko insisted on using only non-genetic techniques such as [[Heterosis|hybridization]] and grafting.<ref name="Leone 1952" />

Support from [[Joseph Stalin]] increased Lysenko's popularity. In 1935, Lysenko compared his opponents in biology to the peasants who still resisted the Soviet government's collectivization strategy, saying that the opponents of his theories were opponents of Marxism. Stalin was in the audience for this speech, and was the first to stand and applaud, calling out "Bravo, Comrade Lysenko. Bravo."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Cohen |first1=Richard |title=Political Science |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2001/05/03/political-science/ec1489dc-fc49-475c-a2a7-db396fee9160/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=3 May 2001}}</ref> Stalin personally made encouraging edits to a speech by Lysenko, despite the dictator's skepticism toward Lysenko's assertion that all science is class-orientated.<ref name="Rossianov 1993">{{cite journal |last=Rossianov |first=Kirill O. |title=Editing Nature: Joseph Stalin and the "New" Soviet Biology |journal=Isis |issue=December 1993 |date=1993 |volume=84 |pages=728–745 |doi=10.1086/356638 |jstor=235106 |pmid=8307727 |s2cid=38626666 }}</ref> The official support emboldened Lysenko and gave him and Prezent free rein to slander any geneticists who still spoke out against him. After Lysenko became head of the [[VASKhNIL|Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences]], classical genetics began to be called "fascist science"<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=deJong-Lambert |first=William |title=The Lysenko Controversy as a Global Phenomenon, Volume 1: Genetics and Agriculture in the Soviet Union and Beyond |date=2017 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-3319391755 |page=6}}</ref> and many of Lysenkoism's opponents, such as his former mentor [[Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov]], were imprisoned or executed, although not on Lysenko's personal orders.<ref name="Harper 2017">{{cite journal |last=Harper |first=Peter S. |title=Lysenko and Russian genetics: Reply to Wang & Liu |journal=European Journal of Human Genetics |volume=25 |issue=10 |year=2017 |pages=1098 |issn=1018-4813 |doi=10.1038/ejhg.2017.118|pmid=28905879 |pmc=5602019 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Graham1993"/>

During 1947 October, Lysenko and Stalin exchanged multiple letters. Lysenko promised Stalin to breed branching wheat into a yield of 15,000 kg/ha. At that time, the most productive wheat breed under exceptionally favorable conditions could achieve 2,000 kg/ha.<ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019" /> Lysenko's letter to Stalin, dated October 27, 1947 read;<blockquote>Mendelism-Morganism, Weissmanist neo-Darwinism ... are not developed in Western capitalist countries for the purposes of agriculture, but rather serve reactionary purposes of eugenics, racism, etc. There is no relationship between agricultural practices and the theory of bourgeois genetics.<ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019" /></blockquote>

=== Peak ===
From July 31 to August 7, 1948, the [[VASKhNIL|Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL)]] held a week-long session,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lenina |first=Vsesoyuznaya Akademiya Sel'skokhozyaistvennykh Nauk im V. I. |url=https://archive.org/details/thesituationinbiologicalscience |title=The situation in biological science: proceedings of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the U.S.S.R. session, July 31-August 7, 1948, verbatim report. |date=1949 |publisher=Foreign Languages Publishing House |location=Moscow}}</ref> organized by Lysenko and approved by Stalin.<ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019">{{cite journal|last1=Borinskaya|first1=Svetlana A.|last2=Ermolaev|first2=Andrei I.|last3=Kolchinsky|first3=Eduard I.|year=2019|title=Lysenkoism Against Genetics: The Meeting of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences of August 1948, Its Background, Causes, and Aftermath|journal=Genetics|volume=212|issue=1|pages=1–12|doi=10.1534/genetics.118.301413|issn=0016-6731|pmc=6499510|pmid=31053614|doi-access=free}}</ref> At the end of it, Lysenkoism was declared as "the only correct theory." As Lysenko performatively spoke at the end, "the Central Committee of the Communist Party has examined my report and approved it". Attendants recognized this as the birth of a new orthodoxy. Of the 8 scientists who advocated genetics during the session, 3 immediately announced repentance.<ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019" />

Soviet scientists were required to denounce any work that contradicted Lysenko,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wrinch |first=Pamela N. |jstor=2008893 |title=Science and Politics in the U.S.S.R.: The Genetics Debate |journal=[[World Politics]] |volume=3 |issue=4 |date=July 1951 |pages=486–519|doi=10.2307/2008893 |s2cid=146284128 }}</ref> and criticism was denounced as "bourgeois" or "fascist". The [[Ministry of Higher Education (Soviet Union)|Ministry of Higher Education]] commanded all biological institutes to immediately follow the Lysenko orthodoxy:<ref>Kaftanoff S, 1948, [http://www.libussr.ru/doc_ussr/ussr_4710.htm Order of the USSR Ministry of Higher Education no. 1208, August 23, 1948 ''On the state of teaching of biological disciplines in the universities and measures to strengthen the biological faculties by qualified staff of biologists-Michurinists''] (in Russian).</ref><blockquote>The Central University Administration and the Administration of Cadres are directed to review within two months all departments of biological faculties to free them from all opposed to Michurinist biology and to strengthen them by appointing Michurinists to them.

Point 6 of the ''Order No. 1208'' (August 23, 1948)<ref name=":5">{{Cite Q|Q109407986}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=125}}</blockquote>For several months, similar central directives dismissed scientists, withdrew textbooks, and required the removal of any references to heredity in higher education. There was also an order to destroy all stocks of ''Drosophila,'' a common [[model organism]] for research in genetics.<ref name=":5" />{{Reference page|page=125}} Leading geneticists were being monitored by secret agents from the State Security Service.<ref name=":5" />{{Reference page|page=129}}

The same wave of [[Propaganda in the Soviet Union|propaganda]] supported a number of other [[Pseudoscience|pseudo-scientific]] "new Marxist sciences" in the Soviet academy, in fields such as [[Japhetic theory|linguistics]] and [[socialist realism|art]]. [[Pravda]] reported the invention of a [[perpetual motion]] engine, confirming Engels' claim that [[Entropy|energy dissipated]] in one place must concentrate somewhere else.<ref name=":4" /> Lysenko's journal ''Agrobiology'' published reports of wheat turning into rye, cabbages into rutabaga, etc.

In 1948, the film [[Michurin (film)|''Michurin'']] portrayed Michurin as an ideal Soviet scientist, bringing the propaganda to the masses.<ref name=":6" /> Published songbooks included songs praising Lysenko, "He walks the Michurin path/With firm tread;/He protects us from being duped/by Mendelist-Morganists."<ref name=":5" />{{Reference page|page=132}}

In Lysenko and his followers' political claim, the "Weismannist-Mendelist-Morganist" theory was reactionary and idealistic, a tool of the bourgeois, while the "Michurinist" theory was progressive and materialistic. The victory of Michurinism was framed as a victory of socialism over capitalism. Some even traced Hitler's racial policies to the genetic theory.<ref name=":5" />{{Reference page|pages=119-121}} 

A prominent promoter of Lysenkoism was the biologist [[Olga Lepeshinskaya (biologist)|Olga Lepeshinskaya]], who attempted to demonstrate [[abiogenesis]] of cells and tissues from "vital substance". She delivered a speech in 1950 in which she equated all of the "bourgeois" [[Heresy|heresies]]:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Лепешинская О.Б. Развитие жизненных процессов в доклеточном периоде |url=http://www.bioparadigma.spb.ru/lepeshiskaya2.htm |access-date=2023-08-27 |website=www.bioparadigma.spb.ru |archive-date=2008-12-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081212051855/http://www.bioparadigma.spb.ru/lepeshiskaya2.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=In our country there are no longer classes hostile to each other, and the struggle of idealists against dialectical materialists still, depending on whose interests it defends, has the character of a class struggle. Indeed, the followers of Virchow, Weismann, Mendel and Morgan, who speak of the invariability of the gene and deny the influence of the external environment, are the preachers of the pseudo-scientific teachings of the bourgeois eugenicists and of all perversions in genetics, on the soil of which grew the racial theory of fascism in the capitalist countries. The Second World War was unleashed by the forces of imperialism, which also had racism in its arsenal.|author=[[Olga Lepeshinskaya (biologist)|Olga Lepeshinskaya]]}}

Perhaps the only opponents of Lysenkoism during Stalin's lifetime to escape liquidation were from the small community of Soviet [[Nuclear physics|nuclear physicists]]: according to [[Tony Judt]], "it is significant that Stalin left his nuclear physicists alone and never presumed to second guess ''their'' calculations. Stalin may well have been mad but he was not stupid."<ref name="Judt">{{cite book |last=Judt |first=Tony |title=Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 |location=New York |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2006 |page=174n}}</ref>

===Effects on scientists===
Genetics was eventually banned in the Soviet Union.<ref name="Soyfer Nature" /> Over 3,000 biologists were fired, and numerous scientists were imprisoned, or executed<ref name=":2">{{cite book |last1=Birstein |first1=Vadim J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2XqEAAAAQBAJ |title=The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story Of Soviet Science |date=2013 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=9780786751860 |page=216 |quote=Academician Schmalhausen, Professors Formozov and Sabinin, and 3,000 other biologists, victims of the August 1948 Session, lost their professional jobs because of their integrity and moral principles [...] "To arrest, torture, and execute opponents of scientists whose professional opinion was supported by the Party and the state was the OGPU/NKVD/NKGB method of solving professional disagreements in science." [...] " |access-date=2016-06-30}}</ref><ref name="Soyfer Nature" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Soyfer |first1=Valeriĭ. |title=Lysenko and The Tragedy of Soviet Science |date=1994 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=9780813520872 |page=194 |quote=Two weeks after the end of the August 1948 session...Lysenko seized this chair and the nation's oldest and most respected higher educational institution in the field of agriculture was now completely in Lysenko's hands. A wave of dismissals followed, in which about three thousand biologists lost the jobs they had held in institutions of research and higher education. The universities affected included those in Moscow, Leningrad, Gorky, Kharkov, Kiev, Voronezh, Saratov, Tbilisi, and many other towns. Some of the people who were dismissed were also arrested.}}</ref> for attempting to oppose Lysenkoism, and genetics research was effectively destroyed until the death of Stalin in 1953.<ref name="Soyfer Nature">{{cite journal |last=Soyfer |first=Valery N. |author-link=Valery Soyfer |date=1 September 2001 |title=The Consequences of Political Dictatorship for Russian Science |journal=Nature Reviews Genetics |volume=2 |issue=9 |pages=723–729 |doi=10.1038/35088598 |pmid=11533721 |s2cid=46277758|quote= Communist Party leaders wholeheartedly embraced Lysenko's promising claims. By 1934, Lysenko was proclaiming that genetics was a hostile science for those who supported communist ideology — a view that culminated in a ban on genetics. Political dictatorship in science in the USSR led to the complete collapse of not only genetics, but also soil sciences, mathematical economics, statistics, cybernetics and many other disciplines. Outstanding scientists who were considered the enemies of the Communist state were arrested and many were executed.}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{cite book |last1=Soĭfer |first1=Valeriĭ. |title=Lysenko and The Tragedy of Soviet Science |date=1994 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=9780813520872 |location=New Brunswick, N.J.}}</ref> Secret research facilities such as [[sharashka]] were where numerous scientists ended up imprisoned.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Birstein |first1=Vadim J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2XqEAAAAQBAJ |title=The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story Of Soviet Science |date=2013 |publisher=Perseus Books Group |isbn=9780786751860 |page=293 |quote=As mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2, special institutes for imprisoned scientists existed from the late 1920s. However, a system of secret sharashki under the NKVD Department of Special Design Bureaus was established in the late 1930s, on September 29, 1938. Even arrested NKVD specialists, especially those from the Foreign Intelligence, were transferred under the NKVD Special Bureau for some time for teaching and writing textbooks. Later, they were tried and usually executed. In July 1941, this department was renamed the NKVID/MVD Fourth Special Department, in which 489 imprisoned scientists and 662 NKVD officers worked.}}</ref>

From 1934 to 1940, under Lysenko's admonitions and with Stalin's approval, many geneticists were executed (including [[Izrail Agol]], [[Solomon Levit]], Grigorii Levitskii, [[Georgii Karpechenko]] and [[Georgii Nadson]]) or sent to [[labor camp]]s. The famous Soviet geneticist and president of the Agriculture Academy, [[Nikolai Vavilov]], was arrested in 1940 and died in prison in 1943.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Cohen |first=Barry Mandel |title=Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov: the explorer and plant collector |journal=Economic Botany |volume=45 |issue=1 (Jan-Mar 1991) |date=1991 |pages=38–46 |doi=10.1007/BF02860048 |jstor=4255307|bibcode=1991EcBot..45...38C |s2cid=27563223 }}</ref> In 1936, the American [[geneticist]] [[Hermann Joseph Muller]], who had moved to the [[Leningrad]] Institute of Genetics with his ''[[Drosophila]]'' fruit flies, was criticized as bourgeois, capitalist, imperialist, and a promoter of fascism, and he returned to America via Republican Spain.<ref name="Carlson 1981">{{cite book |author=Carlson, Elof Axel |author-link=Elof Axel Carlson |title=Genes, radiation, and society: the life and work of H. J. Muller |publisher=Cornell University Press |location=Ithaca, NY |year=1981 |pages=184–203 |isbn=978-0801413049}}</ref> [[Iosif Abramovich Rapoport|Iosif Rapoport]], who worked on mutagens, refused to publicly repudiate chromosome theory of heredity, and suffered several years as a geological lab assistant. [[Dmitry Sabinin]]'s book on plant physiology was abruptly withdrawn from publication in 1948. He died by suicide in 1951.

Those who supported Lysenkoism were favored. [[Alexander Oparin|Oparin]] vigorously defended Lysenkoism and was politically favored, although he may have been genuine in his belief, as he continued to defend it even in 1955, after its fall.<ref>{{cite web |date=2014-11-11 |title=VIVOS VOCO: В.Я. Александров, "Трудные годы советской биологии" |url=http://vivovoco.astronet.ru/VV/BOOKS/ALEXANDROV/CHAPTER_3.HTM |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140525201228/http://vivovoco.astronet.ru/VV/BOOKS/ALEXANDROV/CHAPTER_3.HTM |archive-date=2014-05-25 |access-date=2024-05-16 |website=vivovoco.astronet.ru}}</ref>

Inspired by the success of Lysenkoism and the 1948 VASKhNIL session, other fields of Soviet science experienced brief revolutions, albeit with less success: against "Pavlovians" in medicine, against "reactionary Einsteinism" in physics and quantum mechanics, and against [[Resonance (chemistry)|Pauling resonance theory]] in chemistry.{{r|:5|p=133}}

In addition to the biological sciences, Lysenkoism had an impact on geological sciences, especially paleontology and biostratigraphy in the USSR.<ref>[https://www.sciengine.com/CAHST/doi/10.3724/SP.J.1461.2024.01125 The State of Geological Sciences in the USSR by the Mid-Twentieth Century] // [[Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology]]. 2024. Volume 8, Issue 1 P. 125-130.</ref>

===Fall===

At the end of 1952, the situation started to change, and newspapers published articles criticizing Lysenkoism. However, the return to regular genetics slowed down in [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s time, when Lysenko showed him the supposed successes of an experimental agricultural complex. It was once again forbidden to criticize Lysenkoism, though it was now possible to express different views, and the geneticists imprisoned under Stalin were released or [[Rehabilitation (Soviet)|rehabilitated posthumously]]. The ban was finally lifted in the mid-1960s.<ref name="aleksandrovvya">{{cite book |last=Alexandrov |first=Vladimir Yakovlevich |title=Трудные годы советской биологии: Записки современника |trans-title=Difficult Years of Soviet Biology: Notes by a Contemporary |publisher=Наука ["Science"] |year=1993 |url=http://vivovoco.astronet.ru/VV/BOOKS/ALEXANDROV/CONTENT.HTM}}</ref><ref name="KolchinskyKutschera2017"/>

Lysenkoism was never dominant in the West, and during the 1960s, it increasingly was seen as [[pseudoscience]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gordin |first=Michael D. |author-link=Michael D. Gordin |date=2012 |title=How Lysenkoism Became Pseudoscience: Dobzhansky to Velikovsky |journal=Journal of the History of Biology |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=443–468 |doi=10.1007/s10739-011-9287-3 |issn=0022-5010 |jstor=41653570|pmid=21698424 |s2cid=7541203 }}</ref> Soviet scientists noticed the great advance in [[molecular biology]], such as the characterization of DNA, and even hold-out Lysenkoists were starting to accept DNA as the material basis for heredity (though they still rejected gene theory).<ref name="Casp" />

===Reappearance===

In the 21st century, Lysenkoism is again being discussed in Russia, including in respectable newspapers like ''[[Kultura (newspaper)|Kultura]]'' and by biologists.<ref name="KolchinskyKutschera2017" /> The geneticist Lev Zhivotovsky has made the unsupported claim that Lysenko helped found modern developmental biology.<ref name="KolchinskyKutschera2017">{{cite journal |last1=Kolchinsky |first1=Edouard I. |last2=Kutschera |first2=Ulrich |last3=Hossfeld |first3=Uwe |last4=Levit |first4=Georgy S. |title=Russia's new Lysenkoism |journal=Current Biology |volume=27 |issue=19 |year=2017 |pages=R1042–R1047 |issn=0960-9822 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2017.07.045|pmid=29017033 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2017CBio...27R1042K }} which cites {{cite book |last=Graham |first=Loren |title=Lysenko's Ghost: Epigenetics and Russia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IUu6CwAAQBAJ |year=2016 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-08905-1}}</ref> Discoveries in the field of [[epigenetics]] are sometimes raised as alleged late confirmation of Lysenko's theories, but in spite of the apparent high-level similarity (heritable traits passed on without DNA alteration), Lysenko believed that environment-induced changes are the primary mechanism of heritability. [[Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance|Heritable epigenetic effects]] have been found, but are minor and unstable compared to genetic inheritance.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Graham|first=Loren|title=Lysenko's Ghost: Epigenetics and Russia|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-674-08905-1}}</ref>

== Scientific content ==

Heredity was reformulated as "the property of the living body to demand certain environmental conditions and to react in a certain way to them".{{r|:5|p=144}} Michurin attempted to explain Lamarckian heredity by theorizing that some sort of "heredity" is present all throughout an organism, which reacts to environmental influence. This is incompatible with the [[Weismann barrier]], which leads Lysenkoists to denounce Weismann. Instead, they proposed a "physiological" theory, that the heredity diffused throughout the body is somehow collected in the germ cells, which are "built from molecules, granules, of various organs and parts of the organism", i.e. the [[pangenesis]] theory.<ref name=":7" /> When two germ cells form a zygote, the "weak" one is assimilated by the stronger one, like food digestion.<ref name="Casp" />

This theory also explains vegetative hybridization, as the heredity in the scion may diffuse into the stock, resulting in a change in the stock's offspring. The vegetative hybridization theory was further tested on animals by injecting blood, for example, by injecting blood from colored chicken into a white chicken. It was claimed that the white chicken's offspring showed partly and fully colors. However, such claims were rejected by Western scientists. The plant hybridization experiments did not replicate, and the chicken experiment did not control for [[Dominance (genetics)|recessive alleles]].<ref name="Casp" />

Lysenko also proposed a form of Lamarckian [[heterochrony]]. An individual plant develops in stages, depending on its environment. A change in environment can speed up or slow down the stages, and result in downstream effects that are then inherited. This theory justified Lysenkoist plant-breeding practices.<ref name="Casp" />

As Darwin proposed the pangenesis theory, this partly redeems Darwin for Lysenko, though the historical correctness of Darwin was demoted in comparison with Lamarck's.<ref name=":7" />

==In other countries==

Other countries of the [[Eastern Bloc]] accepted Lysenkoism as the official "new biology", to varying degrees. In [[Communist Poland]], Lysenkoism was aggressively pushed by state propaganda. State newspapers attacked "damage caused by bourgeois [[Mendelism]]-Morganism" and "imperialist genetics", comparing it to ''[[Mein Kampf]]''. For example, ''[[Trybuna Ludu]]'' published an article titled "French scientists recognize superiority of Soviet science" by [[Pierre Daix]], a French communist and chief editor of ''[[Les Lettres Françaises]]'', basically repeating Soviet propaganda claims; this was intended to create an impression that Lysenkoism was accepted by the whole progressive world.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Lysenkoist propaganda in Trybuna Ludu|url=https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/lysenkoist-propaganda-in-trybuna-ludu/viewer|access-date=2020-06-07|website=cyberleninka.ru}}</ref> While some academics accepted Lysenkoism for political reasons, the Polish scientific community largely opposed it.<ref name="gaj">{{cite journal |journal=[[Quarterly Review of Biology]] |year=1990 |volume=65 |issue=4 |author=Gajewski W. |title=Lysenkoism in Poland |doi=10.1086/416949 |pages=423–34 |pmid=2082404|s2cid=85289413 }}</ref> A notable opponent was [[Wacław Gajewski]]: in retaliation, he was denied contact with students, though he allowed to continue his scientific work at the Warsaw botanical garden. Lysenkoism was rapidly rejected starting from 1956, and in 1958 Gajewski founded the first department of genetics, at the [[University of Warsaw]].<ref name="gaj"/>

[[Communist Czechoslovakia]] adopted Lysenkoism in 1949. The prominent geneticist Jaroslav Kříženecký (1896–1964) criticized Lysenkoism in his lectures, and was dismissed from the Agricultural University in 1949 for "serving the established capitalistic system, considering himself superior to the working class, and being hostile to the democratic order of the people"; he was imprisoned in 1958.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=[[Quarterly Review of Biology]] |last=Orel |first=Vitezslav |title=Jaroslav Kříženecký (1896–1964), Tragic Victim of Lysenkoism in Czechoslovakia |volume=67 |issue=4 |pages=487–494 |year=1992 |jstor=2832019 |doi=10.1086/417797|s2cid=84243175 }}</ref>

In [[East Germany]], although Lysenkoism was taught at some universities, it had very little impact on science due to the actions of a few scientists, such as the geneticist [[Hans Stubbe]], and scientific contact with [[West Berlin]] research institutions. Nonetheless, Lysenkoist theories were found in schoolbooks as late as the dismissal of Nikita Khrushchev in 1964.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/S0168-9525(02)02677-X |title=How did East German genetics avoid Lysenkoism? |first=Rudolf |last=Hagemann |journal=Trends in Genetics |volume=18 |issue=6 |year=2002 |pages=320–324 |pmid=12044362}}</ref>

Lysenkoism dominated [[Science in the People's Republic of China|Chinese science]] from 1949 until 1956, during which open discussion of alternative theories like classical Mendelian genetics was forbidden. Only in 1956 during a genetics symposium opponents of Lysenkoism were permitted to freely criticize it and argue for Mendelian genetics.<ref name="china">{{cite journal |title=Lysenkoism in China |last=Li |first=C. C. |journal=Journal of Heredity |volume=78 |issue=5 |page=339 |year=1987|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a110407 }}</ref> In the proceedings from the symposium, [[Tan Jiazhen]] is quoted as saying "Since [the] USSR started to criticize Lysenko, we have dared to criticize him too".<ref name="china"/> For a while, both schools were permitted to coexist, although the influence of the Lysenkoists remained large for several years, contributing to the [[Great Famine (China)|Great Famine]] through loss of yields.<ref name="china"/>

Almost alone among Western scientists, [[John Desmond Bernal]], Professor of Physics at [[Birkbeck, University of London|Birkbeck College, London]], a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]], and a communist,<ref name=sage>{{cite journal |last1=Witkowski |first1=J. A. |title=J. D. Bernal: The Sage of Science by Andrew Brown (2006), Oxford University Press |doi=10.1096/fj.07-0202ufm |journal=The FASEB Journal |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=302–304 |year=2007|doi-access=free }}</ref> made an aggressive public defence of Lysenko.<ref>{{cite book |last=Goldsmith |first=Maurice |title=Sage: A Life of J. D. Bernal |year=1980 |publisher=[[Hutchinson (publisher)|Hutchinson]] |location=London  |isbn=0-09-139550-X |pages=105–108}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Anti-intellectualism]]
* ''[[Deutsche Physik]]''
* [[Junk science]]
* [[Neo-Lamarckism]]
* [[Solomon Levit]] – a notable victim 
* [[Pavlovian session]]
* [[Politicization of science]]
* [[Suppressed research in the Soviet Union]]
* "''[[Bourgeois pseudoscience]]''"
* [[Nature versus nurture controversy]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [[Denis Buican]], ''L'éternel retour de Lyssenko'', Paris, Copernic, 1978. {{isbn|2859840192}}
* [[Ronald Fisher]], "What Sort of Man is Lysenko?" ''Listener'', '''40''' (1948): 874–875. Contemporary commentary by a British evolutionary biologist ([https://web.archive.org/web/20090316173453/http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/coll/special//fisher/229.pdf pdf format])
* [[Loren Graham]], [https://books.google.com/books/about/Science_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union.html?id=m_wPpj64GqMC&pg=PA121 Chapter 6. "Stalinist Ideology and the Lysenko Affair"], in ''Science in Russia and the Soviet Union'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
* [[Oren Harman|Oren Solomon Harman]], "C. D. Darlington and the British and American Reaction to Lysenko and the Soviet Conception of Science." ''Journal of the History of Biology'', Vol. 36 No. 2 (New York: Springer, 2003)
* [[David Joravsky]], ''The Lysenko Affair'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
* [[Richard Levins]] and [[Richard Lewontin]], "Lysenkoism", in ''The Dialectical Biologist'' (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1985).
* [[Anton Lang (biologist)|Anton Lang]], [https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.124.3215.277.b "Michurin, Vavilov, and Lysenko"]. ''Science'', Vol. 124 No. 3215, 1956) {{doi|10.1126/science.124.3215.277b}}
* [[Valery N. Soyfer]], ''Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science'' (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1994). {{isbn|0813520878}}
* "The Disastrous Effects of Lysenkoism on Soviet Agriculture". ''Science and Its Times'', ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer, Vol. 6. (Detroit: Gale, 2001)
<!--please do not add papers etc here, this is not a catalogue - if something is USEFUL, cite it in the article, thanks-->

==External links==
* [http://skepdic.com/lysenko.html SkepDic.com] – 'Lysenkoism', [[The Skeptic's Dictionary]]
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bw51j Lysenkoism], BBC Radio 4 discussion with Robert Service, Steve Jones & Catherine Merridale (''In Our Time'', June 5, 2008)

{{Lysenkoism|state=uncollapsed}}
{{Pseudoscience|state=autocollapse}}
{{Joseph Stalin}}

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[[Category:Anti-intellectualism]]
[[Category:Denialism]]
[[Category:Politics of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Lamarckism]]
[[Category:Non-Darwinian evolution]]
[[Category:Obsolete biology theories]]
[[Category:Political terminology]]
[[Category:Politics of science]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]
[[Category:Science and technology in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Science and technology in Ukraine]]
[[Category:Scientific misconduct incidents]]
[[Category:Soviet phraseology]]
[[Category:Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic]]