Acquired Characteristics

deJong-Lambert, William

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-2840-0_4

William deJong-Lambert²

Part of the book series: Archimedes ((ARIM,volume 32))

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Abstract

When Lysenko gave his first lecture after the VASKhNIL session the streets surrounding the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Moscow were jammed with the private cars of officials from the Ministry of Agriculture. Inside the staff was in attendance, and students crowded the hallways to listen in on loudspeakers. A brass band summoned especially for the occasion pumped out a March, and Lysenko proceeded to the podium through cheering throngs. As he spotted older scientists in the crowd he shouted—“Aha! You came to relearn?”

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Notes

1.
Conway Zirkle, “Further Notes on Pangenesis and the Inheritance of Acquired Characters,” The American Naturalist 70, no. 731 (1936): 529–46, 531.
2.
Medvedev, Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko, p. 131.
3.
T. Lysenko, Organizm i środowisko (Warszawa Państwowy Instytut Wydawnictw Rolniczych, 1950), p. 3. See also deJong-Lambert, “The Uses of the Dead in the Science of Life.”
4.
Coe, in The Evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky, ed. Adams, p. 24; The Good Neighbor Policy was established by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to improve relations with Central and South America.
5.
Correspondence, Th. Dobzhansky to L.C. Dunn, September 9, 1948. B: D917 L.C. Dunn Papers. Dobzhansky, Theodosius 1948–1949. The American Philosophical Society.
6.
Undated correspondence, Th. Dobzhansky to L.C. Dunn. B: D917 L.C. Dunn Papers. Dobzhansky, Theodosius 1948–1949. The American Philosophical Society.
7.
The Reminiscences of L.C. Dunn, 256. Oral History Research Office. Columbia University, 1961.
8.
“Pravda Hits Trend of Soviet Biologists,” New York Times, August 13, 1948.
9.
“Lysenko Crushes Geneticists in Russia,” New York Times, August 19, 1948.
10.
“Lysenko Again to the Fore,” New York Times, August 22, 1948.
11.
“Russian Recants Bourgeois Science; Accepts Party Line in Genetics,” New York Times, August 25, 1948.
12.
“Letters to the Times,” New York Times, August 27, 1948.
13.
“‘True’ Science,” The Wall Street Journal, August 20, 1948.
14.
“Repeal of Mendel,” The Hartford Courant, September 1, 1948.
15.
“The Mind of the Kremlin,” Washington Post, August 22, 1948.
16.
“No Walls Between Students,” New York Times, September 12, 1948.
17.
“Biology in Soviet Must Be Partisan,” New York Times, September 5, 1948.
18.
“The Word: Russian Science,” New York Times, August 29, 1948; “Soviet Widening Scientists Purge,” New York Times, September 23, 1948.
19.
“Matter of Fact: Phony Tomato,” The Hartford Courant, August 23, 1948; “The Phony Tomato,” The Washington Post, August 26, 1948; “Marxism as Applied to Growing Tomatoes,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1948.
20.
Time, September 6, 1948, p. 66.
21.
The Wrocław congress was also the first time French and Italian biologists learned what had happened at the VASKhNIL session. Francesco Cassatta, “The Italian Communist Party and the ‘Lysenko affair’ (1948–1955),” Journal of the History of Biology 45, no. 1 (2012).
22.
“Huxley Asks End to Attacks,” New York Times, August 28, 1948; “Huxley Denounces Breslau Conference,” New York Times, September 2, 1948.
23.
“Haldane Hits U.S. Doctors,” New York Times, September 6, 1948; “Briton Assails Intellectual ‘Parley,’ for Teaching War Not Peace,” New York Times, August 27, 1948.
24.
“Cultural Deviation in Soviet Bloc Seen,” New York Times, November 17, 1948.
25.
Ibid.
26.
“U.S. Aide Assails Soviet at UNESCO,” New York Times, November 20, 1948; “Abroad,” New York Times, November 20, 1948.
27.
H.J. Muller, “The Destruction of Science in the USSR,” The Saturday Review of Literature, December 4, 1948, pp. 13–5, 63–5; H.J. Muller, “Back to Barbarism Scientifically,” The Saturday Review of Literature, December 11, 1948, pp. 8–10.
28.
Muller, “The Destruction of Science in the USSR,” p. 13.
29.
Ibid.
30.
Ibid, p. 65.
31.
Muller, “Back to Barbarism Scientifically,” p. 9.
32.
Ibid.
33.
Ibid, 10.
34.
Saturday Review of Literature, January 8, 1948, 23–4.
35.
Howard Fast (1914–2003) was well-known novelist and member of the Communist Party USA. In 1950 he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was forced to self-publish his most important novel, Spartacus, after being blacklisted by major publishers. The novel was a success, and the production of the film version is seen as an important victory against the anti-communist movement in the United States. Other significant works from this period include an essay, “Why the Fifth Amendment?,” where Fast spoke out against McCarthyism.
36.
The Journal of Heredity 40, no. 7 (1949): 194.
37.
Soyfer, Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science, pp. 205–7. See also Stephen Brain, “Stalin’s Environmentalism,” Russian Review 69, no. 1 (January 2010).
38.
Journal of Heredity 40, no. 7 (1949).
39.
“Soviet Film Hails Michurin, Plant Breeder, Whose Theories Stirred Up Heredity Battle,” New York Times, January 3, 1949.
40.
“Movie Review, Michurin (1948), The Screen in Review; ‘Life in Bloom,’ Film of Life of Russian Scientist, Is New Picture at the Stanley Theater,” New York Times, May 9, 1949; For further information on the film see deJong-Lambert and Krementsov, “On Labels and Issues.”
41.
Soyfer, Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science, p. 193.
42.
“Czechs ‘Revise’ Biology,” New York Times, March 6, 1949.
43.
B: Z67 Conway Zirkle Papers, Dimitrova, Elena--‘Lysenko in Bulgaria’ (from Free Bulgaria 1949, p. 244). The American Philosophical Society.
44.
“Rumania Reported Fighting Partisans,” New York Times, July 25, 1949.
45.
Alexander von Schwerin, “Lysenkoism and the Reform of Postwar West German Genetics.” Paper presented at the International Workshop on Lysenkoism, December 5, 2009.
46.
Francesco Cassata, “The Italian Communist Party and the ‘Lysenko affair’.”
47.
Gajewski, “Lysenkoism in Poland,” pp. 426–7; Szczepan Pieniążek, Dookoła Sadowniczego Świata (Warszawa, Poland: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Rolnicze i Leśne, 1965), pp. 450–2; Leszek Kuźnicki, Conversation with author, 11 August 2003.
48.
Medvedev, Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko, pp. 134–5.
49.
Medvedev, Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko, pp. 133–4, 182–4; Soyfer, Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science, pp. 213–7.
50.
Krementsov, Stalinist Science, pp. 260–74.
51.
“Lysenko’s Brother Takes Refuge Here,” New York Times, September 11, 1949; “Lysenko’s Brother Escapes to U.S.,” The Journal of Heredity XL, no. 9 (1949): 251.
52.
See especially Conway Zirkle, Evolution, Marxian Biology, and the Social Scene (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959).
53.
Conway Zirkle, “Animals Impregnated by Wind,” Isis 25, no. 1 (1936): 101.
54.
Zirkle, “Animals Impregnated by Wind,” p. 107.
55.
Ibid, p. 114.
56.
Zirkle, “Animals Impregnated by Wind,” pp. 95–130.
57.
Correspondence, Th. Dobzhansky to Conway Zirkle, April 23, 1948. B: Z67 Conway Zirkle Papers. Dobzhansky, Theodosius. The American Philosophical Society.
58.
Correspondence, L.C. Dunn to Miss Deborah Bacon, March 21 1949. B: D917 L.C. Dunn Papers. Lysenko Controversy in the U.S. The American Philosophical Society.
59.
“Scientist Finds Russian Dictum on Genetics Purely Political, But Opposed to Nazi Idea,” B: Z67 Conway Zirkle Papers. Dunn, L.C. Concerning the Lysenko Report: 4. The American Philosophical Society.
60.
Bulletin of the Atomic S cientists, May (1949): 143.
61.
B: Z67 Conway Zirkle Papers, Death of a Science in Russia (Preface to Japanese Edition). The American Philosophical Society.
62.
B: Z67 Conway Zirkle Papers. Havas, Laśzló. The American Philosophical Society.
63.
Ibid.
64.
“An Appraisal of Science in the U.S.S.R.”: 10. B: Z67 Conway Zirkle Papers ‘An Appraisal of Science in the U.S.S.R.’. The American Philosophical Society.
65.
Ibid, p. 16.
66.
Correspondence, Conway Zirkle to contributors, Death of a Science in Russia. B: D917 Dunn. Zirkle, Conway. The American Philosophical Society.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Zirkle, Death of a Science in Russia, p. 98.
69.
Zirkle, Death of a Science in Russia, p. 151; The Situation in Biological Science, p. 265.
70.
The Situation in Biological Science, p. 13; Zirkle, Death of a Science in Russia, p. 100.
71.
Ibid, p. 245.
72.
Ibid, p. 167.
73.
See below.
74.
“Wallace Defines American Fascism,” New York Times, April 9, 1944.
75.
Correspondence, Henry Wallace to L.C. Dunn, August 21, 1945. B: D917 L.C. Dunn Papers. Lysenko Controversy in the U.S. #2. The American Philosophical Society.
76.
“Has Democratic Hope ‘Genius Will Blossom’,” Washington Post, September 5, 1948.
77.
“Political Football.” Washington Post, September 14, 1948.
78.
“Wallace Outlines ‘Abundance’ Setup,” New York Times, February 15, 1949.
79.
Time, August 9, 1949.
80.
“Charges of Freedom Curbs Rising in Nation’s Colleges,” New York Times, May 29, 1949.
81.
“Display Ad,” New York Times, October 20, 1948.
82.
“Display Ad,” New York Times, February 19, 1948.
83.
“Rockefeller Gift Helps Scientists Open Door to Russian Knowledge,” New York Times, February 8, 1947.
84.
Gormley, Geneticist L.C. Dunn: Politics, Activism and Community, pp. 365, 366.
85.
Ibid, pp. 368–9.
86.
“Letters to the Times,” New York Times, March 18, 1948; “Letters to the Times,” New York Times, March 19, 1948; “Letters to the Times,” New York Times, March 6, 1948.
87.
Dunn’s efforts on behalf of the American-Soviet Science Society are described in detail in Gormley, Geneticist L.C. Dunn: Politics, Activism and Community, pp. 358–83.
88.
The Reminiscences of L.C. Dunn, pp. 794–7; This incident is also recounted in Gormley, Geneticist L.C. Dunn, p. 386. Gormley writes that after finding out someone had been appointed in his place, “Dunn said that he drew the obvious conclusion.” It is likely that the “too enthusiastic” report Dunn submitted to the Rockefeller Foundation after his 1927 visit also played a role in his being rejected. In American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Europe, John Krige writes how the officers of the Rockefeller Foundation used the organization’s resources and influence to help contain communism at the start of the Cold War. See John Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Europe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), pp. 115–51.
89.
Dobzhansky’s daughter wrote that after Dobzhansky’s initial trip to Brazil in 1943 as part of Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy: “The Brazil connection continued for years and gave my father the chance to indulge in his love for the tropics.” Coe, in The Evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky, ed. Adams, 24.
90.
Correspondence, Th. Dobzhansky to L.C. Dunn, December 12, 1948. B: D917 L.C. Dunn Papers. Dobzhansky, Theodosius 1948–1949. The American Philosophical Society.
91.
Ibid.
92.
Ibid.
93.
“Haldane in Search of an 18½ Inch Collar,” New York Times, 26, 1946.
94.
John Langdon-Davies, Russia Puts the Clock Back (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1949), p. 78.
95.
Ibid, p. 88.
96.
Ibid.
97.
Paul, “A War on Two Fronts,” pp. 13, 14, 19.
98.
Clark, JBS, p. 180.
99.
Clark, JBS, 200.
100.
Paul, “A War on Two Fronts,” p. 19.
101.
Ibid, p. 30.
102.
Time, September 27, 1948, pp. 68–9.
103.
J.B.S. Haldane, “Biology and Marxism,” The Modern Quarterly 3, no. 4 (1949): 2–11.
104.
Ibid, pp. 6–7.
105.
Ibid, p. 9.
106.
Ibid, p. 10.
107.
Ibid, p. 11.
108.
J.B.S. Haldane, “In Defense of Genetics,” The Modern Quarterly 4, no. 3 (1949): 194–202.
109.
Ibid, p. 98.
110.
Ibid, p. 200.
111.
Ibid, p. 201.
112.
Thanks to Nikolai Krementsov for pointing out to me that the first Russian translations of Waddington’s works appeared in Lysenko’s mouthpiece, Agrobiology. See deJong-Lambert and Krementsov, “On Labels and Issues.”
113.
See also, David B. Searls, “From Jabberwocky to Genome: Lewis Carroll and Computational Biology,” Journal of Computational Biology 8, no. 3 (2001): 339–48.

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CUNY History, Bronx Community College, University Avenue, NY, USA
William deJong-Lambert

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deJong-Lambert, W. (2012). Acquired Characteristics. In: The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research. Archimedes, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2840-0_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2840-0_4
Published: 24 December 2011
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