Final Defeat for Comrade Lysenko

The announcement from Moscow was blunt: Trofim Denisovich Lysenko had been relieved as director of the Institute of Genetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The very name of the man who had been fired came back into the news like a memory of the past. But then Geneticist Lysenko had always been a man of the past. He rose to his position of power in Soviet science in the 1930s by preaching Lamarckism, the 18th century belief that plants and animals can transmit to the next generation characteristics they acquire in their own lifetime.

Across the world, Lysenko's fellow scientists scoffed at his theories; heredity, they believe, is controlled by genes in the reproductive cells and remains unchanged throughout an individual's life. But Lysenko had something else beside his dogma going for him. He was an exceedingly skillful Communist-style politician, and his views held great appeal for Joseph Stalin. They abetted Stalin's will to believe that hereditary traits can be changed in a planned society. For more than a quarter of a century, as those views controlled Soviet biological research and were written into Soviet textbooks, they degraded Soviet science.

To Siberia. With Stalin to back him, Lysenko became absolute dictator of Soviet biology, including agricultural research and development. In 1940 he sent his opponent, Professor Nikolai I. Vavilov, Russia's leading geneticist, to die in Siberia. He purged or silenced other critics in universities and laboratories. While Stalin lived, no one dared to disagree with Lysenko. His primitive exercises in plant and animal breeding had few successes, and lack of dogma-free research contributed heavily to the poor performance of Soviet agriculture.

When Stalin died and was replaced by Khrushchev, Lysenko lost his absolute power. He was fired as president of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences as an increasing number of critics dared to oppose his views. Still, Lysenko had startling survivability. Even though Khrushchev was a great admirer of hybrid corn, the most conspicuous practical triumph of orthodox genetics, he did not cut Lysenko down entirely. Himself a peasant's son, Khrushchev was apparently attracted by Lysenko's rustic methods, and as his personal power grew, he raised Lysenko step by step, put him back in the Institute of Genetics and permitted him to bring many of his followers back into favor. Russian science continued to suffer from his political influence.

Bad Situation. Khrushchev's fall last October was the beginning of the end for Lysenko. The Soviet press blossomed with articles against him; it published columns of praise for his enemies and critics. Soviet genetic laboratories openly dared to use Western ideas and methods. Lysenko's departure last week was marked by a speech by Mathematician Mstislav V. Keldysh, president of the august Academy of Sciences. Said Keldysh: "The exclusive position held by Academician Lysenko must not continue. His theories must be submitted to free discussion and normal verification.

If we create in biology the same normal scientific atmosphere that exists in other fields, we will exclude any possibility of repeating the bad situation we witnessed in the past."

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