Editing Trofim Lysenko (section)

==Repression of biologists==
In the spring of 1937, shortly after Stalin's report at the March plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the shortcomings of party work and measures to eliminate Trotskyists and other double-dealers," Lysenko and his supporters, including Isaak Prezent and Alexander Kohl, began their campaign against geneticists,{{sfn|Medvedev|1969|p=52}} accusing them of colluding with the anti-Stalinist opposition and reactionary sabotage.{{sfn|Medvedev|1969|p=53}}

During the 1930s and '40s, the V.I. Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences ([[VASKhNIL]]) served as a floor for debate between [[Lysenkoism|Lysenkoists]] and [[geneticists]]. On 7 August 1948, at the end of a week-long session organized by Lysenko and approved by Stalin,<ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019">{{cite journal|last1=Borinskaya|first1=Svetlana A.|last2=Ermolaev|first2=Andrei I.|last3=Kolchinsky|first3=Eduard I.|year=2019|title=Lysenkoism Against Genetics: The Meeting of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences of August 1948, Its Background, Causes, and Aftermath|journal=Genetics|volume=212|issue=1|pages=1–12|doi=10.1534/genetics.118.301413|issn=0016-6731|pmc=6499510|pmid=31053614|doi-access=free}}</ref> the VASKhNIL announced that from that point on Lysenkoism would be taught as "the only correct theory." Soviet scientists were forced to denounce any work that contradicted Lysenko.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wrinch |first=Pamela N. |jstor=2008893 |title=Science and Politics in the U.S.S.R.: The Genetics Debate |journal=[[World Politics]] |volume=3 |issue=4 |date=July 1951 |pages=486–519|doi=10.2307/2008893 |s2cid=146284128 }}</ref> Prezent accused the geneticists, whom Lysenko and supporters termed "[[August Weismann|Weismann]]ists-Mendelists-Morganists", of ideological unreliability. At the 1948 VASKhNIL session, Prezent said:<ref name="washniil"/>
{{blockquote|We are encouraged to debate here. We will not discuss with the Morganists, we will continue to expose them as representatives of a harmful and ideologically alien movement, brought to us from foreign countries, pseudoscientific in its essence.}}

Several geneticists who refused to denounce the theory were executed (including [[Izrail Agol]], [[Solomon Levit]], Grigorii Levitskii, [[Georgii Karpechenko]] and [[Georgii Nadson]]) or sent to [[labor camp]]s. One prominent critic of Lysenko, the famous Soviet geneticist and president of the Agriculture Academy, [[Nikolai Vavilov]], was arrested in 1940 and died in prison in 1943.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Cohen |first=Barry Mandel |title=Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov: the explorer and plant collector |journal=Economic Botany |volume=45 |issue=1 (Jan-Mar 1991) |date=1991 |pages=38–46 |doi=10.1007/BF02860048 |jstor=4255307|bibcode=1991EcBot..45...38C |s2cid=27563223 }}</ref> Before the 1930s, the Soviet Union had arguably the best genetics community. According to ''[[The Atlantic]]'' writer [[Sam Kean]], "Lysenko gutted it, and by some accounts, set Russian [[biology]] and [[agronomy]] back a half-century".<ref name="atlantic"/> Lysenko's work was eventually recognized as fraudulent by some, "but not before he had wrecked the lives of many and destroyed the reputation of Russian biology" according to scientist [[Peter Gluckman]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gluckman|first=Peter|title=Principles of Evolutionary Medicine|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0199236398|pages=81}}</ref>