Is it true that the Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko called genetics the corrupt girl of imperialism?

There is a widespread belief that the Soviet agronomist and biologist, representative of the so-called Michurin agrobiology Trofim Denisovich Lysenko called classical genetics the corrupt girl of imperialism. We decided to check whether this is confirmed by historical documents.

Information that the phrase belongs to a Soviet agronomist is found in many reputable media. For example, RIA Novosti columnist Tatyana Sinitsyna writes: “On August 7, 1948, from the rostrum of the session of VASKhNIL (All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after V.I. Lenin), People’s Academician Trofim Lysenko threw into the hall the following words: “Genetics is the corrupt girl of imperialism.” And Vesti.ru quotes Lev Ernst, academician of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, who, recalling the ideas of Trofim Lysenko, spoke: “It was a tragedy for biological science, especially for genetics. Suffice it to remember how he himself said somewhere that this is a corrupt girl of imperialism.” Can meet and the following statement: “Lysenko accused geneticists of deliberately delaying the development of agriculture; genetics was called pseudoscience, a servant of Goebbels’ department, a corrupt girl of imperialism.” The phrase also appears in fiction, but without an exact indication of the author. For example, in novel “Bison” by Daniil Granin: “In 1948 they would have dealt with him quickly, but different times have come, you can’t put a noose on him. “Bourgeois science”, “fly-loving misanthropes”, “genetics is the corrupt girl of imperialism” and similar methods did not work, it was still 1957.”

Persecution of classical genetics in the USSR started in the 1930s. By 1936, two opposing approaches had emerged in Soviet biological science. One was Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, the most prominent representative of the second was Trofim Denisovich Lysenko. At the IV session of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after. Lenin in Moscow, both scientists defended their views before the scientific and party community. And although Lysenko’s experiment had significant methodological violations, it was his theory that received official approval.

Trofim Denisovich and his colleagues called their approach was based on Michurin’s agrobiology, but opposed to themselves “bourgeois Weismannism - Morganism - Mendelism” (classical genetics). The basis of Michurin agrobiology lay the idea of ​​upbringing - supposedly acquired characteristics can be passed on by the parent organism to descendants. This approach also denied the importance of chromosomes as a carrier of heredity and Darwin’s theory regarding the intraspecific struggle for existence. Classical genetics, that same Weismannism - Morganism - Mendelism, named after the names of the three most prominent representatives of science, was based on completely different postulates. German zoologist August Weismann suggestedthat the chromosomes of the cell nucleus are responsible for heredity. American geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan formulated and experimentally demonstrated the chromosomal theory of heredity, for which received Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933. And the Austrian monk and botanist Gregor Mendel back in the middle of the 19th century opened patterns of inheritance of monogenic traits, which are now studied at school in biology lessons under the name of Mendel’s laws.

The final defeat of classical genetics and the triumph of Michurin agrobiology happened in 1948 at the August session of VASKhNIL. Tam Trofim Denisovich read his report “On the situation in biological science”, and also made a speech about the superiority of the Soviet approach over the bourgeois one. It was during this meeting that, allegedly, the phrase about the corrupt girl of imperialism was uttered. At the same time materials The August session was transcribed and is now completely digitized. The expression we are interested in does not appear there. The participants of the session really call genetics a bourgeois science, reactionary, foreign, formal, and its principles - false and harmful.

A study of the question of where this phrase actually appeared was carried out by Russian translator, cultural scientist and historian Konstantin Dushenko. In his Dictionary of Modern Quotations, he indicates, that it was first heard in Alexander Khazin’s play “The Wizards Live Nearby,” written in 1964. A monologue from this play with a mention of the phrase that interests us was read by the extremely popular artist in the USSR Arkady Raikin at the Leningrad Theater of Miniatures, which he directed. Information about this is available, for example, at website Museum of the Central Documentary Film Studio. There is also a more complete quotation from the play, put into the mouth of a collective image of an official named Pantyukhov: “All my life I have liked non-specific specialties - commissioner, instructor, cultural specialist. I also worked on the perfume front, releasing a perfume called “Here the Soldiers Are Coming”; then at the stadium, he came up with holidays with folk artists and horses; then I was thrown into biology, where I wrote an article “Genetics - the corrupt girl of imperialism”; I read a report at a seminar: “Every year our weak currents are becoming stronger and stronger.”

A recording of an excerpt from the play performed by Arkady Raikin with the corresponding quote can also be found in the public domain.

Thus, the common phrase did not belong to a Soviet agronomist, but appeared in fiction. Moreover, it apparently so accurately and figuratively reflected the views of supporters of Lysenkoism that it was soon attributed to the ideologist of the movement himself.

Cover image: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Incorrect quote attribution

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