He was appointed
as the president (1938-56) of the Lenin All-Union Academy of
Agricultural Sciences and the director (1940-65) of the Institute of
Genetics, USSR Academy of Sciences. The leadership of the USSR
believed his promises to deliver rapid increases in crop yields.
Lamarck proposed that organisms can inherit traits acquired by their
ancestors. The first giraffes stretched their necks to eat leaves on
tall trees. Their offspring acquired this elongated neck and the
desire to further stretch it. A species with long necks was born.
The Soviet leadership sought an indigenous theory to counter the
"capitalistic" works of Mendel and Charles Darwin and to separate
evolution from genetics.
Following a speech he gave at a conference in 1948 denouncing
Mendelian genetics as "reactionary and decadent", Lysenko rose to
prominence. Geneticists who opposed Lysenkoism were dispatched to the
gulag as "enemies of the Soviet people". Most confessed to their
"errors" in propounding Mendel's and Darwin's teachings - and,
consequently, kept their jobs.
No one dared challenge Lysenko until 1964 - 9 years after Stalin died
- even when he claimed, between 1948 and 1953, that wheat plants can
produce seeds of rye.
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