Mao and Lewontin's Error
Some Crucial Misconceptions that Lewontin had in his Essay on Lysenko where he correctly stated the actual amounts of wheat produced but where he launched into what he thought was Lysenko's "error." (Lewontin's essay is referenced in TD Lysenko and the NKVD). See also Philip E. Panaggio's essays here for most up to date archival data.
By Comrade TL
Regarding Mao's and then Lewontin's notions that Stalin supported Lysenko's 2 sciences. This contains some VERY crucial facts that were unknown to Mao and Lewontin and which have ONLY come to light in the last few years!
First of all, a BIG fact: Lysenko never claimed there were two sciences. He said there were TWO TRENDS happening in SOVIET science and, as head of VASHKhNIL, he could NOT support both since they were incompatible in all ways, including where FUNDING ends up and what gets done in practice.
Neither Mao nor Lewontin knew that it was THE GENETICISTS, every time, that dragged the Central Committee (CC) and Stalin into the debates with Lysenkoites CULMINATING in the BIG debate in 1948 about which NOTHING BUT DISTORTIONS were known or written about in the past. They DO know that the geneticists had nothing to show, no practical things and that Lysenko most certainly did have a LOT to show (a lot to eat, too). That it was the GENETICISTS that did this, THEY TRIED TO INVOLVE STALIN, this is a jaw dropper (I didn't know it either!). It was a real matter of funding (i.e., People's Money, not private funding).
Geneticists were diverting funds to their theoretical work on fruitflies, butterflies and other things that served NO ONE. Lysenko's peasants needed TOOLS and weren't getting them due to diversion of funds. Stalin MORE THAN ONCE chided Vavilov about this and the OGPU did so also in 1928 or so. Wasting money on nothing. But it was not Lysenko or his people who EVER tried to go over everyone's head and bring CC and Stalin into it. GENETICISTS DID THIS! However the events leading STALIN to declare that there were TWO SCIENCES (not just trends) in 1948, had nothing to do with Lysenko at all. It had to do with MAJOR events of new Cold War.
Neither Mao nor Lewontin knew that it was STALIN who had the huge ontological theory of Diamat which STALIN attached to the reality of the 2 TRENDS IN science (that's what Lysenko called it); keep in mind that in the 1930's science/medicine/biology BECAME profitable. It also became in vogue to call the same old theory of "saved and damned" scientific by using "scientific racism" in place of the old theology.
Neither Mao nor Lewontin knew that what LYSENKO meant by this TWO TRENDS IN SCIENCE (bourgeois versus proletarian science, as it CAME TO BE called) was purely that: there is science, but one group USES it to bolster imperialism and exploitation, or make medicines ONLY the rich can afford whilst depriving others of the benefits, or they come up with lunatic ideas that WILL NOT WORK, and the other (prole) group does not do this at all! That the first group bolstering imperialism DISTORTS reality when talking science to the public, uses portions of science and THEN bolsters up a theory that has nothing to do with science but justifies exploitation and racism and imperialism. That Lysenko's group never did this, nor did they even ever use science to prove Marxism was right! They were into simple, PRACTICAL (eatable) results! NOTHING MORE! Lysenko did NOT do this "2 theories" thing, he RIGHTLY said there were two TRENDS VYING WITH EACH OTHER THAT ARE INCOMPATIBLE, practically speaking (they are!) -he was NOT INTO THEORY and said so in his writings. He DID things, PRODUCED things. He could NOT back people who produced NOTHING but volumes of words and theories, while he was head of VASHkhNIL.
Neither Mao nor Lewontin knew that Stalin took time out during crucial meetings with the USA and England (after WWII) to PERSONALLY dictate to Lysenko the last paragraph of that speech claiming that the CC supported Soviet Creative Darwinism. Stalin did this due to what one geneticist said that threatened to derail the entire meeting and he did this because of events having NOTHING TO DO with the scientific debate but all to do with the Cold War. Krementsov documents it and it's from archives, dates, details. (Krementsov: "Stalinist Science")
Neither Mao nor Lewontin knew that some of the changes Stalin personally made to Lysenko's speech MADE IT SOUND almost Lamarckian when the original was NOT Lamarckian AT ALL. Rossianov dug it out by GETTING the paper itself. And it is Lysenko that has had to live thru the SLANDERS due to those changes.
Stalin did not support Lysenko's theory because Lysenko DID NOT HAVE a theory of anything like this or of that magnitude! STALIN had the theory.
Here is an example of the KIND of things Lysenko merely stated which were facts: Yarovizatsya (Lysenko's own journal), 1937, No 2, p. 15 states: "The discussion here is about securing the further development of geneticists from the point of view of development, securing the development of genetics as a science in place of converting genetics into a service of Goebbles. Only this will make it possible to convert such science into the highest stage which, at the moment, is in its primary stages of development. Only this will make is possible for our geneticists to earn respect of all the progressive scientists in the world. For the sake of clarity we repeat that Darwinism is not against genetics. Darwinism is for genetics. Darwinism is not against genetics but Darwinism is against FASCIST DISTORTION OF genetics and the fascist utilization of genetics in its political aims that are detrimental to the progress of humanity." (emphasis mine)
It is not that there is "2 genetics" - this is all too clear. This is the kind of simple, practical thing Lysenko said. Stalin, however, had the BIG ontological theory.
NEITHER MAO NOR LEWONTIN KNEW THIS OR COULD HAVE KNOWN IT UNTIL A FEW YEARS AGO.
The ONLY FEW things that set Lysenko at odds with geneticists are detailed in the article on this website: Lysenko versus Geneticists. He never made grandiose theories at all. Stalin did! Isaac Prezent fit a lot of what Lysenko said based on observation of plants, into a dialectical materialist mold. This is not surprising. NATURE WORKS in a kind of ever-moving-flowing dialectic and nature is also material. Ergo? Nature is dialectically materialistic!
It is more than well-known that Mendel did all he did to try to prove Darwin was wrong and that there was NO SUCH THING AS EVOLUTION. THAT is what Mendel tried to prove. He was WRONG about his 3:1, that only applies to diseases! Lysenko did not have a theory about it, nor did he even KNOW why Mendel said this. He merely said he tried it and it doesn't come out 3:1! Kamin and others have proven falsehoods in what Mendel said - it's well known. The most recent facts are in: "Mendel's Opposition to Evolution and to Darwin" by B. E. Bishop in the JOURNAL OF HEREDITY, 1996; 87; 205-213. 0022-1503/96/$5.00 This is solely about Mendel and pretty much references all the prior data; it's NOT about Lysenko at all.
How it went down: First off, it is VERY well known that English and U.S. geneticists, led by Huxley, PLANNED and PLOTTED a scheme to destroy Lysenko and they did this in cahoots with Soviet geneticist against Lysenko. This is well known, admitted to by all. They kept up the barrage by trying to make his words sound silly or by putting words into his mouth or taking his metaphorical puns literally (on purpose). They also TRASHED JBS Haldane on British radio, poor guy. This was after WWII when relations with the West were OK at first. They mounted a real campaign against Lysenko. One has to wonder: WHY? WHY BOTHER? Uh, did it have SOMETHING TO DO with money and who got funds? YEAH? Then relations turned Cold War.
It is only a PITY that the only "Lysenko" that Mao later knew, was the Western and anti-Lysenko Soviet distortion of Lysenko and that's a FACT. I read what Mao had to say: none of it was Lysenko - it was "Lysenko as seen thru the distorted lens of Western LIES and SLANDER." FACT. Lewontin just didn't know, had no FACTS, but at least he printed up the FOOD RESULTS and proved that the Western lies were LIES. Why did he believe the rest? Because MAO did? Mao believed the lies. And so the lies get perpetuated BY THE LEFT as well as the Right. (Lewontin's essay is in: The Radicalisation of Science, Edited by H. Rose and S. Rose: Chapter Two: "The Problem of Lysenkoism" by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins: for the real statistics and the real growth in agriculture with Lysenko at the helm with the situation regarding planting and Soviet environment fully explained. Not pro or con, just an objective expose in short.)
Early 1948: Shmal'gausen, director of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology of the Academy of Sciences, writes several letters to the Central Committe, urging them to censor Lys.'s press campaign against geneticists. Early Jan. 1948: Lys. has skillfully succeeded in delaying new elections to the Academy of Sciences for 159 newly created vacancies (see above, July 22, 1947), but the nomination of his supporters is fiercely opposed by the geneticists, expecially the nomination of Isaak Prezent. Lys. goes on record with the Central Committee once again saying that there are two trends in agricultural science, only one of which will provide great practical results. (See later what the genetic trend DID!) Feb. 3 - 8, l948: Forty biologists present papers at a conference organized at Moscow University to demonstrate the existence of intraspecies competition, but the Central Committee, while allowing publication of the meeting's resume, does not allow the opponents of Lys. access to the public press, calling it "inexpedient." Feb. 20 - 25, 1948: Communists effect coup in Czechoslovakia. Also in Feb.: Yu. Zhdanov sends Stalin a long meorandum accusing Lys. of sabotage due to Lys.'s attempting to stop the introduction of a tetraploid variety of a rubber-producing plant koksagyz invented by the cytogeneticist Mikhail Navashin. Lys. termed it a "genetic monster." March 6, 1948: Representatives of Britain, US, France, etc. meet in London and announce plans to create a German state on territories still occupied by Allies. Spring l948: On April 10, Yuri Zhdanov, head of the Science Dept. of the Party Central Committee and Stalin's son-in-law, attacks Lys. sharply and bitterly at a lecture at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum, supporting Schmal'gauzen's and the geneticists' theory of intraspecies competition. Lys.'s campaign has proved abortive, and he thereafter submits a letter of resignation to Stalin. He gets no immediate response. Lys. 50 yrs. old. May ll, l948: In a crafty maneuver, Lys. sends a formal request to be relieved of his position as head of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences to A. Benediktov, USSR Minister of Agriculture, attempting thereby to attract the attention of Malenkov and Stalin to his clash with Yu. Zhdanov. June 10, 1948: Stalin reprimands Yu. Zhdanov for attacking Lys. and representing it as the Central Committee's position on a scientific question. He is spared further punishment, remaining in his position at Agitprop as long as Stalin lived. July 17, 1948: Malenkov replaces A. Zhdanov as head of Orgburo. June 24, 1948: USSR blockades Berlin. War seems immanent. July 1, l948: Western powers organize airlift of supplies to Western zone of Berlin. July 15, 1948: Yu. Zhdanov sends repentent letter to Stalin. Stalin rescues Lys. from having the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences staffed by opponents by calling off scheduled elections and decreeing the appointment of the academicians whom Lys. wanted. Lys. regains his position at the top and Stalin gives Lys. the green light to crush his opponents. (Yuri's letter is as of yet, unpublished.) July 28, 1948: Pravda announces that the Lenin All-Union Academy willhold a meeting in July. July 31, 1948: Lys. delivers the opening presidential address of a session of the new Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences with a speech secretly edited and annotated by an extremely busy Stalin called, "On the Situation in Biological Science." It is an unyielding indictment of genetics, propounding the idea of "two ideologies in biology." The rest of the week is spent fiercely debating the points of the speech. Aug. 2, 1948: Stalin meets with representatives of Britain, US and France on Berlin crisis. Aug. 6, 1948: An extremely busy Stalin meets with Lys. on how to deal with an inadvertent statement made by one of Lys.'s opponents at the session (Zavadovsky) that might lead obtuse Mendelists in attendance to mistakenly think that Lys.'s speech did not represent the party line. Stalin tells Lys. to just announce it and dictates directly to Lys. the last paragraph of the speech. Aug. 7, 1948: On the closing day of the session of the Lenin All-Union Academy, Lys. announces openly that the Central Committee had approved his opening address, making Lys.'s theories on genetics and biology in general the officially sanctioned Soviet trend. THEN Yuri Zhdanov's letter is published.
Do you want to know some of what happened when Khrushchev allowed the GENETIC TREND to rule supreme? Zavadovsky, along with Zhukovky and Shmaltgausen (other genetics people) went in with Khrushchev on the virgin soil corn fiasco. Lysenko wrote to Khrushchev: Lysenko proposed that the FUNDS ALLOTTED for the development of the virgin soil be used instead in the traditional Russian regions towards the fertilization of soil and thus the increase of crop production; the development of the virgin soil was to be left for grazing purposes of livestock until such time as CONCRETE AGROTECHNICAL METHODS (not theories, my note) could be developed for these regions. HE WARNED that the Khrushchev adventurism would yield several crops and then would result in soil erosion and dust storms! It was precisely for this reason that he was dismissed from his office as president of VASHKhNIL. And what he said would happen to the virgin soil - is exactly what happened! Letter to Khrushchev from Lysenko was gotten from archives tho it is well known that Lysenko was always dead set against any kind of corn crops. There is no corn belt in the USSR: Cosmic Duh. These 3 geneticists, Zavadovsky, Zhukovsky, Shmaltgausen (Vavilov's old pals) WRECKED huge areas of land with this fiasco but the way the anti-Lysenko group tells it, Lysenko is almost blamed for it while Vavilov's impeccable, distinguished (puke) colleagues are never GIVEN CREDIT (eh eh) for it. So much for the genetic trend. They TRIED IT and wrecked the land in a way that can NEVER be fixed. Same sorry story in Texas with CORN again.
What Lysenko MEANT by "2 trends" is very clear from what he writes: it is that due to genetic THEORY (unproven in practice, even today, proven in a lab but a royal failure in the field), scientists were coming up with ideas that were BAD if put to practice and we all have to admit that genetic theory, even today, strangly sounds as if it justifies imperialism and exploition and conquest. I doubt genes are that Hobbesian elsewise the precious DNA would not be so EASILY infiltrated and altered by retroviruses (the flu is a retrovirus, fyi)! Lysenko's practices were tried and true and produced GOOD stuff. That's ALL Lysenko meant by this.
Due to what STALIN did this kind of "2 sciences" thing took over ALL areas of science in the USSR with every school trying to find a way to prove their science was proletariat or Michurinist or at least Pavlovian and not bourgeois. That's what HAPPENED. Lysenko did not cause any of it. It was STALIN's theory.
Lysenko really discovered AND REALIZED something of utmost importance as it has turned out with modern studies: vernalization (effect of TEMPERATURE) and phases or stages of development in organisms. But aside from his claim to fame (never given to him, never even lip-service) with this one thing, he was a man NOT prone to theory and very prone to practical results using tried and true means. His THEORY didn't gain him the fame that made him rise; it was the RESULTS he got that fed people that did it. Mao didn't know ANY of this as it happened in the 1930's. At the end of WWII after so much destruction, the enemies of Lysenko were ALREADY trying to say that he never produced anything! Or trying to claim he didn't vernalize anything! That Lysenko had these stupid, bogus theories. LIES! That is what Mao heard.
It is a fine scientific and mathematical fact that 10 minus 1 equals 9. That surely always works on paper, in a lab or anywhere in either sterile conditions or in the exchange of monies. However...let us say you are a lost hunter in a forest and you are starving and there is NOTHING around to eat. Suddenly you come upon a tree upon which are perched 10 birds. AH, food. How many chances do you have to aim perfectly and shoot one down? You have ONE chance. And if you shoot and miss you'll starve. But if you shoot one down successfully, there will be NONE left in the tree, the noise will have chased the others off. This is no silly joke. In NATURE where these organisms with volition interact, 10 minus 1, PLUS NOISE, equals ZERO. Real life situations, or nature in the field: organisms interacting with LIFE out there, do not tend to do what they "are supposed to do" as theorized by sterile lab monks who did a sterile experiment. Lysenko said that too. He was 100% right.
He said stuff, lots of it, in metaphor, or as if he didn't know HOW to explain it. One such "nutty" statement he made was about when you dynamite the soil, you are killing a living thing, as if the soil was alive. I read this with the knowledge of a person in 1990's and I GRASP what he is trying to say. But back then? It would be heard as a crazy statement. He tried to convey the idea that the soil was not just dirt, but it was alive with life that plants absolutely NEED, far beyond water or sun, to survive. He was mocked even by scientists in the 1970's for saying it. He has turned out to be MORE than 100% right. How did he know? He was dead set against using chemical fertilizers too - and for a long time he was considred nuts for that. Again, he was MORE than 100% right because once you continue to do this, you FOREVER wreck the soil. Medvedev lied to the point where he tried to insinuate that Lysenko went against the chemical WAR industry when he never did this, he was against using it for fertilizer. He compromized with Khrushchev on that one and tried to get peasants to mix some chemicals with natural dung. Then he complained that the peasants were not following his instructions. Sure, the stuff ended up wrecked. He is not to blame for ANY of this. Sure he didn't know how to explain any of this back then: we have only discovered this stuff RECENTLY! TOO LATE!
Lysenko did NOT reject the chromosome theory of heredity. What he objected to was the dogma that heredity was SOLELY contained in the chromosome. He turned out to be right: a lot of factors of heredity are in the cytoplasm of cells, not located on the chromosome. Geneticists claimed it was ALL contained in the chromosome. Lysenko disagreed, he was right. A lot of hereditary factors are also exclusively passed down from the cytoplasm IN the mother's egg cell, the chromosomes are not involved. These are hereditary factors, usually either RNA or big protein molecules, they switch genes on and off. This was not known in Lysenko's day; they did not know HOW DNA worked in his day. They certainly had NO idea how retroviruses could, via horizontal transmission, make major changes in things like the way we have babies (eggs versus placental: see "Placental Puzzle" in Science Newes, May 13, 2000, Vol. 157, No. 20, P 318.) Ergo, the geneticists were excessively dogmatic in insisting they were right and declaring this that and the other.
Lysenko never claimed that injections affected the heredity of plants. And he never claimed that x-rays or poisons could NOT affect heredity (he said that such mutation causing agents produced monsters or deformities, sicknesses). What he was doing was GRAFTING PLANTS together and allowing them to "inject" each other. Grafting is essential with citrus crops. Extreme temperatures, such as the human races have been subjected to, have obviously resulted in visibly different physical human types - and the differences ARE inherited; a combination of ENVIRONMENT FIRST (including metabolism) and then, selective breeding, has resulted in what we call "races of people" today. DUH... YOU SEE? (eyesight?) The Lysenko point is that there is NO WAY this can happen thru just random mutations; it happens TOO FAST for it to be merely random mutations. This argument is STILL going on! This same argument continues right now with Dawkins (Selfish Gene) on one side and people like Niles Eldredge (Reinventing Darwin) on the other side. And then there is Lynn Margulis!
He did not persecute anyone as the actual archives show. On the contrary! He did not have a thing to do with Vavilov's troubles, as I've shown in the TDL-NKVD post. Vavilov caused his own troubles.
Lysenko did not rely on party authority FOR his science PER SE. He allowed party philosophy (Marxism), Stalin, Mitin and especially Prezent to explain what he was saying and then used those explanations himself when arguing in polemical style. An example I've noticed is that Stalin did not like the word "inherit" and so he changed it to "acquired." So Lysenko used it -but the way he was using it, it was obvious he meant inherited as in heredity. If you look at the words "inherit" and "acquire" in economical terms, it explains why Stalin would prefer the use of one word over the other. (A scientist that is anti-religion, might object to the use of the word "Light" due to it's religious connotations, and prefer that we all say "photons" instead: but they are the same thing!) (I've noticed that the very real thing called "bioelectricity" in our bodies has been turned into "Lifeforce" by New Agers who understand nothing about biochemistry but think they know a lot about the soul - and imagine science has found the soul.)
Lysenko was relieved of his post in the 1950's because he criticized Khrushchev over the virgin soil and corn fiasco that the geneticists wanted to do. Again, he turned out to be right and Khrushchev ran back to him to try to get it fixed. If Lysenko was a party lap-dog, he'd not have written such a letter to Khrushchev and called his idea "an adventurist scheme." Nor would he have REFUSED to do as he was asked.
Lysenko did not falsify experiments. 1. cows went missing which were very expensive - it was found that the unknowing peasants ate them. 2. later on some of his lab people were sloppy. During this time, Lysenko HAD BEEN writing letters complaining that workers were not following his instructions. He was cleared of this suspicion by the Soviets but in the minds of prejudiced and hateful others, he never was cleared of anything.
Stalin actually SAID that, "I know, I know, Lysenko gets excited, he says he can produce TEN TIMES the amount, and so what if he comes up with maybe 1 and one half more: that's fine. Just to meet the quota is enough. Lysenko is a good worker, he gets excited."
Where David Joravsky shows that Stalin evaded Lysenko's request for a formal ideological embrace of his theories: FULL archival data as shown in Krementsov prove the opposite was true. LYSENKO DIDN'T HAVE THEORIES! He was objecting TO the theories of others.
As it turns out, ANYONE who challenged a person producing practical results when the challenge involved money (NONE of it was privitely funded, keep that in mind!), or anyone getting money and later not showing practical results, attracted the attention of the NKVD. Vavilov was on the OGPU-NKVD suspect list since 1928 as archives show. I don't think anything happened to Shmalthausen, Zavadovsky or Zhukovsky for the mess they made of the land with regards to the corn fiasco. Under Stalin they'd have definitely been shot! Lysenko would then be blamed for it since he violently opposed the corn fiasco all the while.
I tend to be suspicious using pure logic: how could these scientists, learned men, go and do something SO STUPID when there is no corn belt in the USSR? I am no botanist; I'm not even a landscaper, but I would NEVER try to plant something that needs a tropical climate to grow, like a palm tree, somewhere up north in NY. I'd NEVER try to plant something like corn that is a water glutton, in a place where there are constant droughts! HENCE my suspicions. It is moronic not to realize that the USA, THE capitalist country that went so far as to tie consumerist strings to European countries with the Marshal Plan (which USA people's tax dollars paid for), would LOVE to put the USSR in a position where they'd have to BUY GRAIN from the USA! What MORON doesn't know this? What IDIOT thinks this is paranoid? Do you have ANY IDEA what lengths spy agencies (CIA and DIA) would go to, to win? These agencies have even been exposed as having experimented on AMERICAN CITIZENS to find out "what happens" when subjected to this or that. They didn't even do this to convicted murderers or to prisoners as the Nazis did it. They did it to American civililians and their own soldiers. Gimme a break. The Soviets NEVER did things like this. NOT EVEN to Gulag prisoners.
There is a curious thing with vernalization that I'm sure will come up. When Lysenko had peasants vernalize plants, the seeds were ALSO vernalized, thus there was no need to vernalize them (go thru the process) AGAIN. The only way they'd have to re-vernalize would be if the seeds got DE-vernalized or if they mixed with something. It's not simple. This is called epigenetic heredity: no one knew how this worked on a chemical basis back then: NO ONE. Chemicals in the cytoplasm CAN CONVEY hereditary information: this was wholly unknown. The critics claim either or, he was vernalizing the seeds all over again, some claim he stupidly did not re-vernalize - fact is he TOLD peasants they did not have to vernalize again. He was right. But he CLAIMED it was inherited. He also CLAIMED heredity was not solely in the chromosomes (nucleus of cell), he said you have to take ALL of the parts of the cell into account (outside the nucleus) to understand heredity, all the things that geneticists insisted were just "a bunch of junk." HOW DID HE KNOW THIS? He said it, wrote it. Now it's KNOWN. He is never given even the lip service of having SAID this stuff. He is NEVER given credit.
The other utterly ingenious thing Lysenko did was separate the flowering of plants from the growth of plants - one doesn't lead to the other, they are chemically different actions. He called this PHASIC THEORY. This was utterly ingenious. NOW it's all so obvious. Lysenko isn't even given lip service. It is true that Lysenko never tried to further develop his theory, he was focused on how to USE this knowledge to get results. But still, it was a stroke of genius on his part and he is never given a word of credit.
He should get Nobel Prizes for these things. Phasic Theory and Vernalization, not just doing it (it had been done before) but REALIZING something about it that NO OTHER realized before.
© Copyright by Philip E. Panaggio P. O. Box 85, Lehigh Acres, FL 33970-0085, USA
