Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (Трофим Денисович Лысенко ) proved to be among Vavilov’s greatest enemies. Born a peasant in 1898, he secured a position at the Kiev Agricultural Institute and began a career in agricultural science. Lysenko’s “scientific” ideas rejected the then-growing concepts of Mendelian genetics (he even denied the existence of genes), instead believing that traits acquired by an organism during its life are passed to its offspring. Ironically, Nikolai Vavilov supported Lysenko in his early experiments with wheat.
Lysenko’s ideas aligned well with Soviet concepts of societal change and he rose rapidly, ultimately becoming a favorite of Joseph Stalin. When Stalin asked agronomists to solve the famine issues Vavilov gave a timeline of no less than ten years to breed crops that could produce enough in harsh growing conditions; Lysenko promised no more than five years. Stalin backed Lysenko; with this influence, Lysenko purged the Soviet academy of Mendelian geneticists and any others who opposed his concepts. Hundreds, if not thousands, were imprisoned and no small fraction were killed.
Lysenkoism – as his theories became known – was an unmitigated disaster. Instead of solving famine, it grew worse. Millions starved as Lysensko’s methods were enforced by the government. Mao Zedong brought Lysnkoism to the People’s Republic of China in 1958; estimates of the people who died in the resulting Great Chinese Famine are as high as fifty-five million.
After Stalin’s death, the regime under Nikita Kruschev in the 1950s and 1960s finally fully abandoned Lysenkoism - but the damage was done.
https://exhibits.library.cornell.edu/cultivating-silence/feature/collapse-of-reason
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