Editing Lysenkoism (section)

===Rise===

[[Isaak Izrailevich Prezent]], a biologist politically out of favour, brought Lysenko to public attention. He portrayed Lysenko as a [[genius]] who had developed a revolutionary technique which could lead to the triumph of Soviet agriculture, a thrilling possibility for a Soviet society suffering through Stalin's famines. Lysenko became a favorite of the [[Propaganda in the Soviet Union|Soviet propaganda]] machine, which overstated his successes, trumpeted his faked experimental results, and omitted any mention of his failures.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rispoli |first=Giulia |title=The Role of Isaak Prezent in the Rise and Fall of Lysenkoism |journal=Ludus Vitalis |date=2014 |volume=22 |issue=42 |url=http://www.ludus-vitalis.org/ojs/index.php/ludus/article/view/4 |access-date=2019-12-12 |archive-date=2019-12-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191212113106/http://www.ludus-vitalis.org/ojs/index.php/ludus/article/view/4 |url-status=dead }}</ref> State media published enthusiastic articles such as "Siberia is transformed into a land of orchards and gardens" and "Soviet people change nature", while anyone opposing Lysenko was presented as a defender of "[[mysticism]], [[obscurantism]] and backwardness."<ref name=":0" />   

Lysenko's political success was mostly due to his appeal to the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] and [[Soviet ideology]]. His attack on the "[[bourgeois pseudoscience]]" of modern genetics and the proposal that plants can rapidly adjust to a changed environment suited the [[Class conflict|ideological battle]] in both agriculture and Soviet society.<ref>{{cite book |last=Geller |first=Mikhail |title=Cogs in the wheel : the formation of Soviet man |publisher=Knopf |year=1988 |isbn=978-0394569260}}</ref><ref name="LiuLi2009" /> Following the disastrous [[Collectivization in the Soviet Union|collectivization efforts of the late 1920s]], Lysenko's new methods were seen by Soviet officials as paving the way to an "agricultural revolution." Lysenko himself was from a peasant family and was an enthusiastic advocate of [[Leninism]].<ref name="Graham1993">{{cite book |last=Graham |first=Loren R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m_wPpj64GqMC&pg=PA127 |title=Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-521-28789-0 |pages=124–128}}</ref><ref name="LiuLi2009">{{cite journal |last1=Liu |first1=Yongsheng |last2=Li |first2=Baoyin |last3=Wang |first3=Qinglian |title=Science and politics |journal=EMBO Reports |volume=10 |issue=9 |year=2009 |pages=938–939 |issn=1469-221X |doi=10.1038/embor.2009.198|pmid=19721459 |pmc=2750069 }}</ref> The Party-controlled newspapers applauded Lysenko's practical "success" and questioned the motives of his critics, ridiculing the timidity of academics who urged the patient, impartial observation required for science.<ref name="Graham1993" /><ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019"/> Lysenko was admitted into the hierarchy of the Communist Party, and was put in charge of agricultural affairs. 

He used his position to denounce biologists as "[[Drosophila melanogaster|fly]]-lovers and people haters",<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=xBvbQgWtgjsC&pg=PA149 ''Epistemology and the Social''], Evandro Agazzi, Javier Echeverría, Amparo Gómez Rodríguez, Rodopi, 2008, "Philosophy", p. 149</ref> and to decry traditional biologists as "[[wrecking (Soviet crime)|wreckers]]" working to sabotage the Soviet economy. He denied the distinction between theoretical and [[applied biology]], and rejected general methods such as control groups and statistics:<ref>{{Cite web|last=Faulk|first=Chris|date=2013-06-21|title=Lamarck, Lysenko, and Modern Day Epigenetics|url=http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/06/21/lamarck-lysenko-and-modern-day-epigenetics/|access-date=2020-06-06|website=Mind the Science Gap|language=en-US}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=We biologists do not take the slightest interest in mathematical calculations, which confirm the useless statistical formulae of the Mendelists … We do not want to submit to blind chance … We maintain that biological regularities do not resemble mathematical laws.|author=|title=|source=}}

Lysenko presented himself as a follower of [[Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin]], a well-known and well-liked Soviet [[horticulture|horticulturist]], but unlike Michurin, Lysenko insisted on using only non-genetic techniques such as [[Heterosis|hybridization]] and grafting.<ref name="Leone 1952" />

Support from [[Joseph Stalin]] increased Lysenko's popularity. In 1935, Lysenko compared his opponents in biology to the peasants who still resisted the Soviet government's collectivization strategy, saying that by opponents of his theories were opponents of Marxism. Stalin was in the audience for this speech, and was the first to stand and applaud, calling out "Bravo, Comrade Lysenko. Bravo."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Cohen |first1=Richard |title=Political Science |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2001/05/03/political-science/ec1489dc-fc49-475c-a2a7-db396fee9160/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=3 May 2001}}</ref> Stalin personally made encouraging edits to a speech by Lysenko, despite the dictator's skepticism toward Lysenko's assertion that all science is class-orientated.<ref name="Rossianov 1993">{{cite journal |last=Rossianov |first=Kirill O. |title=Editing Nature: Joseph Stalin and the "New" Soviet Biology |journal=Isis |issue=December 1993 |date=1993 |volume=84 |pages=728–745 |doi=10.1086/356638 |jstor=235106 |pmid=8307727 |s2cid=38626666 }}</ref> The official support emboldened Lysenko and gave him and Prezent free rein to slander any geneticists who still spoke out against him. After Lysenko became head of the [[VASKhNIL|Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences]], classical genetics began to be called "fascist science"<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=deJong-Lambert |first=William |title=The Lysenko Controversy as a Global Phenomenon, Volume 1: Genetics and Agriculture in the Soviet Union and Beyond |date=2017 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-3319391755 |page=6}}</ref> and many of Lysenkoism's opponents, such as his former mentor [[Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov]], were imprisoned or executed, although not on Lysenko's personal orders.<ref name="Harper 2017">{{cite journal |last=Harper |first=Peter S. |title=Lysenko and Russian genetics: Reply to Wang & Liu |journal=European Journal of Human Genetics |volume=25 |issue=10 |year=2017 |pages=1098 |issn=1018-4813 |doi=10.1038/ejhg.2017.118|pmid=28905879 |pmc=5602019 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Graham1993"/>

During 1947 October, Lysenko and Stalin exchanged multiple letters. Lysenko promised Stalin to breed branching wheat into a yield of 15,000 kg/ha. At that time, the most productive wheat breed under exceptionally favorable conditions could achieve 2,000 kg/ha.<ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019" /><blockquote>Mendelism-Morganism, Weissmanist neo-Darwinism ... are not developed in Western capitalist countries for the purposes of agriculture, but rather serve reactionary purposes of eugenics, racism, etc. There is no relationship between agricultural practices and the theory of bourgeois genetics.

Lysenko's letter to Stalin, October 27, 1947.<ref name="Borinskaya Ermolaev 2019" /></blockquote>