Trofim Lysenko

Trofim Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist who rejected Mendelian genetics and promoted inheritance through environmental influence. His rise shaped Soviet agricultural policy and contributed to the persecution of geneticists.

Nikolai Vavilov: A Soviet botanist and geneticist who led major crop-collection expeditions and opposed Lysenko’s doctrines. Vavilov’s arrest and death in prison exemplify the personal cost of Lysenko’s ascendancy.
Vernalization: The induction of flowering by exposing seeds or plants to prolonged cold. Lysenko made seed chilling a centerpiece of his agricultural program.
Russian Revolution: The upheavals of 1917 that ended imperial rule in Russia and brought the Bolsheviks to power. The new Soviet state created institutions through which agricultural science became a political concern.
1948 Soviet biology conference: A Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences session that endorsed Lysenko’s views and rejected classical genetics. Its resolutions made Lysenkoism official doctrine in Soviet biology.
Joseph Stalin: The leader of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s until 1953. Stalin’s political support helped Lysenko gain influence over Soviet biology.
Grafting: A horticultural technique that joins plant tissues so they grow as one plant. Lysenko invoked grafting to support claims that acquired traits could affect heredity.
Collectivization in the Soviet Union: The forced consolidation of Soviet agriculture into collective and state farms, beginning in the late 1920s. Agricultural crises under collectivization intensified demand for rapid production gains.
Suppression of genetics in the Soviet Union: The restriction and institutional dismantling of genetic research in the Soviet Union under Lysenkoism. Lysenko’s influence led to dismissals, closures, and the arrest of geneticists.
Trofim Lysenko controversy: The Soviet campaign that promoted Lysenko’s biological doctrines and suppressed genetics. This movement carried Lysenko’s ideas into institutions and state policy.
Inheritance of acquired characteristics: The hypothesis that traits acquired during an organism’s life can be transmitted to offspring. Lysenko’s account of heredity relied on environmental changes becoming inherited traits.

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