Editing Trofim Lysenko (section)

==Politics==
During the early and mid twentieth century the Soviet Union went through war and revolution. Political oppression caused tension within the state but also promoted the flourishing of science: this was possible due to the flow of resources and demand for results. Lysenko aimed to manipulate various plants such as wheat and peas to increase their production, quality, and quantity, while impressing political officials with his success in motivating peasants to return to farming.<ref name="LR">{{cite book |last=Graham |first=Loren R. |author-link=Loren Graham |title=Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union |publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] |year=1972 |page=208}}</ref>

The Soviet Union's [[Kulak#Dekulakization|collectivist reforms]] forced the confiscation of agricultural landholdings from peasant farmers and heavily damaged the country's overall food production, and the dispossessed peasant farmers posed new problems for the regime. Many had abandoned the farms altogether; many more waged resistance to collectivization by poor work quality and pilfering. The dislocated and disenchanted peasant farmers were a major political concern to the USSR's leadership.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fitzpatrick |first=Sheila |author-link=Sheila Fitzpatrick |title=Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1994 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YlBvcNMlr4EC&pg=PA4 4–5]}}</ref> Lysenko became prominent during this period by advocating radical but unproven agricultural methods, and also promising that the new methods provided wider opportunities for year-round work in agriculture. He proved himself very useful to the Soviet leadership by reengaging peasants to return to work, helping to secure from them a personal stake in the overall success of the Soviet revolutionary experiment.<ref name="LR"/>

[[File:Lysenko image.svg|thumb|left|upright=2|Timeline of Genetics and Science in the Soviet Union]]
Lysenko's success at encouraging farmers to return to working their lands impressed Stalin, who also approved of Lysenko's peasant background, as Stalin claimed to stand with the [[proletariat]]. By the late 1920s, the USSR's leaders had given their support to Lysenko. This support was a consequence, in part, of policies put in place by the Communist Party to rapidly promote members of the proletariat into leadership positions in agriculture, science and industry. Party officials were looking for promising candidates with backgrounds similar to Lysenko's: born of a peasant family, lacking formal academic training or affiliations to the academic community.<ref name="NK">{{cite book |first=Nikolai |last=Krementsov |title=Stalinist Science |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=1997}}</ref> Due to his close partnership with Stalin, Lysenko acquired an influence over genetics in the Soviet Union during the early and mid-20th century. Lysenko eventually became the director of Genetics for the Academy of Sciences in 1940, which gave him even more control over genetics.<ref name="SRSU">{{cite book |last1=Graham |first1=Loren |title=Science in Russia and the Soviet Union |date=1993 |publisher=Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge |isbn=0-521-24566-4 |pages=101–132}}</ref> He remained in the position for more than two decades, throughout the reigns of Stalin and [[Nikita Khrushchev]], until he was relieved of his duties in 1965.

Outside the Soviet Union, scientists spoke critically: British biologist [[Sydney Harland|S. C. Harland]] lamented that Lysenko was "completely ignorant of the elementary principles of genetics and plant physiology" ([[Bertram Wolfe]], 2017). Criticism from foreigners did not sit well with Lysenko, who loathed Western "bourgeois" scientists and denounced them as tools of imperialist oppressors. He especially detested the American-born practice of studying [[Drosophila melanogaster|fruit flies]], the workhorse of modern genetics. He called such geneticists "fly lovers and people haters".<ref name="Harman 2003">{{cite journal |last=Harman |first=Oren Solomon |title=C. D. Darlington and the British and American Reaction to Lysenko and the Soviet Conception of Science |journal=Journal of the History of Biology |date=2003 |volume=36 |issue=2 (Summer 2003) |pages=309–352 |doi=10.1023/A:1024483131660 |jstor=4331804|pmid=12945539 |s2cid=32789492 }}</ref>