Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-07-11
Lysenko Falling

PROFESSOR Tf0fm ~. LySenk0, eTStWhtle
high priest Of Soviet biology and agricul-
tural science, has been having hard time
OF 1t ever since the death Of Josef Stain.
Indeed, judging from the latest attack on
him, he has fallen 50 far from grace that
he seems now to be practically finished
q man stripped publicly and ANONYMOUSLY
OF al his past reputation and authority.
For the new attack, as unleashed IN i
major publication OF the Soviet Academy OF
Sciences, scathingly denounces Professor
Lysenko in terms both of his own person
and his theories notably the theory that
environmentaI influences have much
greater significance than heredity Ia de-
termining the characteristics of the or
spring OF plants and animals Stated an
other way, with some oyersimplin cation, his
preachInent has been that man directed
external forces, as distinct from Unborn fac
tors, can transform one species into another
"A pine tree into spruce, for example, or
wheat into barley, or oats into rye, or con-
ceivably q human being into completely
enslaved antomaton Incapable Of resisting
the wishes and orders Of the Kremlin.
When Lysenko flrSt expounded this
view, many of RusSia'S scientists like the
scientists of the West-scoffed at It as
ridiculous distortion and exaggeration Of
the environmental role, highly important
though that role is. But Stain took an In
tense personal interest In the idea. Appar-
emily what he saw In it, among other things,
was the possibility that the Kremlin-by
treating newborn human beings as putty to
be pounded and shaped into the totalitarian
mould with such external influences as
ceaSeleSs propaganda and police-State ter
roriSm-night eventually be able to breed
into the Soviet peoples characteristics that
would reduce them to kind Of mechanical
and accomplishing mass whose conditioned
refiexes would insure absolute obedience to
the Moscow tyranny. So the formidable
dictator became the professors chief patron
and protector. And six years ago, after
long period of controversy, he as much as
decreed that all the biologists Of the
u. S. s. r had to accept Lysenko's theory
as party-line dogma that one could dispute
only at the risk Of being dealt with as
bourgeois ounter-revolutionary."
But with Stains death, and hence with
the passing OF his patronage and protection,
life suddenly began to grow unpleasant for
Lysenko, who found himself the target Of q
series Of assaults from learned Russian
QuarterS-aSSaultS which now appear to
have reached climax in the biting crit
icism just published by the Soviet Journal
of General Biology. For the criticism agrees,
In effect, with long-Standing Western
charges that the professor is not only an
incompetent scientist but, also charlatan.
The criticism does this by declaring that he
has sought to achieve self-seeking mo
nopoly" position and that he has clearly
falsified" evidence in vain effort to SUBJ
stantiate his invalid theories.
In the Soviet Union, when harsh words
OF this sort are let loose against man, that
man is usually on the way out. Lysenko,
who has been described as rather insuffer-
able and overbearing type, must feel that
the sky is falling in on him. At any rate, for
one reason or another perhaps to use him
as scapegoat for agricultural failures the
Kremlin seems very definitely intent upon
topping him, and Russia's best scientists
probably view the prospect with some
pleasure.