The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko [antikvár]

FOREWORD The story of Soviet genetics in the period 1937-1964 is, perhaps, the most bizarre chapter in the history of modem science. In a society devoted to the betterment of the lot of peasants and workers, an illiterate and fanatical charlatan was allowed absolute dictatorship and control over both research in biology and practical agriculture. This event not only stifled the development of science, but also had a far-reaching and destructive influence on the national economy of the Soviet Union. To the outside world, it was completely incomprehensible that a coimtry capable of developing a nuclear potential rivaling that of the United States, and of establishing itself in the forefront of space exploration, could have entrusted its fundamental agricultural resources to exploitation by an obvious quack. Geneticists and agriculturists of the West have long speculated about the machinery of the Lysenko take-over in biology and about the situation that made it possible. This book provides an answer. As Zhores A. Medvedev states in his Preface, the three parts of the book represent the author's three points of view: as historian; as a witness to the events; and as an active participant in the last stages of Lysenkoism, which