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The origins of Soviet genetics and the struggle with Lamarckism, 1922–1929

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Abstract

  1. This essay is an expanded version of an article published in Russian in 1968: A. E. Gaissinovich, “Iz istorii nauki: U istokov sovetskoi genetiki: I. Bor'ba s lamarkiznom (1922–1927)” [From the history of science: Origins of Soviet genetics: I. The struggle with Lamarckism (1922–1927)], Genetika 4, no. 6 (June 1968), 158–175.

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  2. I. F. Shmal'gauzen, O rastitel'nykh pomesiakh: nabliudeniia iz Peterburgskoi flory [On plant hybrids: observations of Petersburg flora] (St. Petersburg, 1874). For details see A. E. Gaissinovitch, “An Early Account of Mendel's Work in Russia,” in Gregor Mendel Memorial Symposium (Brno, 1966), pp. 39–40; “Pervoe izlozhenie raboty G. Mendelia v Rossii (I. F. Shmal'gauzen, 1974)” [First exposition of Mendel's work in Russia (I. F. Shmal'gauzen, 1974)], Biuleten' Moskovskogo obshchestva ispytatelei prirody, biol. ser., 70 (1965), 22–24; A. E. Gaisinovich, Zarozhdenie genetiki [Origins of genetics] (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), pp. 105–107.

  3. I. N. Gorozhankin, “O korpuskulakh i polovom protsesse u golosemennykh rastenii” [On corpuscles and the sexual process in gymnosperms], Uchenye zapiski Moskovskogo universiteta, nat, hist. ser., no. 1 (1880); J. Goroschankin, Über den Befruchtungsprocess bei “Pinus pumilio” (Strasbourg, 1883). See reference in P. A. Baranov, Istoriia embriologii rastenii [History of plant embryology] (Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo AN SSSR, 1955), pp. 311–312.

  4. S. Nawaschin, “Resultate einer Revision der Befruchtungsvorgänge bei Lilium Martagon und Fritillaria tenella,” Bull. Acad. Sci. Imp. St. Petersburg, 9, no. 4 (1898), 377–382. For details see Baranov, Istoria, pp. 312–319.

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  5. For his bibliography see S. Iu. Lipshits, Biograficheskii i bibliograficheskii slovar': Russkie botaniki [Russian botanists: biographic and bibliographic dictionary], vol. 2 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo obschchestva ispytatelei prirody, 1947), p. 257.

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  6. I. P. Borodin, Ocherki po voprosam oplodotvoreniia v rastitel'nom mire [Essays on problems of fertilization in the plant kingdom] (St. Petersburg, 1903), pp. 29–48; first published in Mir Bozhii, nos. 4, 11, and 12 (1903).

  7. E. A. Bogdanov, Mendelizm ili teoriia skreshchevaniia [Mendelism or the theory of crossing] (Moscow: Knigoizdatel'stvo studentov Moskovskogo sel'skokhoziaistvennogo instituta, 1914).

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  8. P. Kuleshov, Nauchnye i prakticheskie osnovaniia podbora plemennykh zhivotnykh v ovtsevodstve [Scientific and practical foundations of pedigree livestock selection in sheep breeding] (Moscow, 1890).

  9. N. A. Sopliakov, “Dannye k postroeniiu formuly masti u Orlovskogo rysaka” [Data for establishing the color formula for Orlov trotters], Vestnik zhivotnovodstva, nos. 8–9 (1914). Later he changed his name to Iurasov.

  10. I. I. Ivanov and Iu. A. Filipchenko, “Opisanie gibridov mezhdu bizonom, zubrom i rogatym skotom v zooparke ‘Askaniia-Nova’ F. E. Fal'ts-Feina” [Description of hybrids between bison, aurochs, and percora in the “Askaniia-Nova” zoo], Arkhivy veterinarnykh nauk, 2 (1915), 97–129; E. Iwanow and J. Philiptshenko, “Beschreibung von Hybriden zwischen Bison, Wisent und Hausrind,” Z. indukt. Abstam. und Vererbungslehre, 16, 1–48; Iu. A. Filipchenko, “O cherepakh nekotorykh vidov gibridov mezhdu dikimi i domashnimi formami” [On the skulls of several kinds of hybrids between wild and domesticated forms], Arkhivy veterinarnykh nauk, np. 9 (1915), 871–897; Iu. A. Filipchenko, “Izmenchivost' i nasledstvennost' cherepa u mlekopitaiushchikh” [Variability and heredity of the skull in mammals], pt. 1, Russkii arkhiv anatomii, gistologii, i embriologii, 1 (1916–1917), 311–404; pt. 2, ibid., pp. 747–818.

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  11. Izvestiia Instituta eksperimental'noi biologii, no. 1 (Moscow, 1921).

  12. For Muller's own account of his visit, see H. J. Muller, “Observations of Biological Science in Russia,” Scientific Monthly, 16 (1925), 539–552. For a list of the Drosophila cultures brought by Muller and an account of the first experiments using them, see A. S. Serebrovskii and V. V. Sakharov, “Novye mutatsii Drosophila melanogaster, ” [New mutations in Drosophila melanogaster], Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, ser. A, 1 (1925), 75–91.

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  13. Two issues (nos. 1–2 and 3) of the “Division of Experimental Biology” of the Biuleten' Moskovskogo obshchestva ispytatelei prirody [Bulletin of the Moscow Society of Naturalists] were published in 1924. No further volumes appeared under this imprimature. Series A of the Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii [Journal of experimental biology] was established as a continuation of these volumes. Series B of the journal constituted the continuation of the journal Uspekhi eksperimental'noi biologii [Achievements of experimental biology], which had been founded in 1922.

  14. N. V. Timofeev-Resovskii, “O fenotipicheskom proiavlenii genotipa” [On the phenotypic manifestation of the genotype], Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, ser. A, 1 (1925), 93–142. [For a detailed account of Timofeev-Resovskii's research in this area, see Mark B. Adams, “The Founding of Population Genetics: Contributions of the Chetverikov School, 1924–1934,” J. Hist. Biol., 1, no. 1 (1968), 23–39. — M.B.A.]

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  15. S. S. Chetverikov, “O nekotorykh momentakh evoliutsionnogo protsessa s tochki zreniia sovremennoi genetiki,” Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, ser. A, 2, no. 1 (1926), 3–54. For details see B. L. Astaurov, “Dve vekhi v razvitii geneticheskikh predstavlenii” [Two landmarks in the development of genetics], Biuleten' Moskovskogo obshchestva ispytatelei prirody, biol. ser., 70, no. 4 (1965), 25–32. [For an English translation of Chetverikov's classic paper, see S. S. Chetverikov, “On Certain Aspects of the Evolutionary Process from the Standpoint of Modern Genetics,” ed. I. Michael Lerner, trans. Malina Barker, Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 105, no. 2 (April 1961), 167–195. For a discussion of the work of Chetverikov's group, see Mark B. Adams, “Towards a Synthesis: Population Concepts in Russian Biological Thought, 1925–1935,” J. Hist. Biol., 3, no. 1 (1970), 107–109. For a discussion of Chetverikov's concept of the “genotypic milieu”, see Adams, “Founding of Population Genetics,” pp. 34–39. — M.B.A.]

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  16. A. S. Serebrovskii, “Vliianie gena purple na krossingover mezhdu Black i cinnabar u Drosophila melanogaster” [The influence of the gene purple on crossing over between Black and cinnabar in Drosophila melanogaster], Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, ser. A, 2 (1926), 55–100 (in English, J. Genet. 18, [1927], 136–175); A. S. Serebrovskii, L. V. Ferri, and O. A. Ivanova, “Vliianie genov y, l i , and N i na krossingover v levom kontse polovoi khromosomy u Drosophila melanogaster” [The influence of the genes y, l i , and N i on crossing over at the left end of the sex chromosome in Drosophila melanogaster], Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, ser. A, 4 (1928), 1–29 (in English, J. Gene., 21 [1929], 287–312).

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  17. His monograph summarizing these results was published posthumously; Iu. A. Filipchenko, Genetika miagkikh pshenits [Genetics of soft wheats] (Leningrad: Gosizdat sovkhoznoi i kolkhoznoi literatury, 1934). This book includes a bibliography of his earlier works.

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  18. N. I. Vavilov, Zakon gomologicheskikh riadov v nasledstvennoi izmenchivosti [Law of homologous series in hereditary variation] (Saratov, 1920); for a fuller version in English, see J. Genet., 12 (1922), 47–89. [For a discussion of both his law of homologous series and his theory of the centers of origin of cultivated plants, see Mark B. Adams, “Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov,” Dictionary of Scientific Biography, suppl. vol. (New York: Charles Scribners, 1978).—M.B.A.]

  19. L. S. Berg, Nomogenez ili evoliutsiia na osnove zakonomernostei (St. Petersburg, 1922); English translation, L. S. Berg, Nomogenesis or Evolution Determined by Law (London, 1926). See also L. S. Berg, Teorii evoliutsii [Theories of evolution] (St. Petersburg: Academia, 1922); republished in L. S. Berg, Trudy po teorii evoliutsii 1922–1930 [Works on the theory of evolution, 1922–1930] (Moscow: Nauka, 1977).

  20. V. M. Shimkevich, “Novaia faza v razvitii rossiiskogo antidarvinizma” [A new phase in the development of Russian anti-Darwinism], Ekskursionnoe delo, nos. 4–6 (1923), 288–300; B. M. Kozo-Polianskii, Poslednee slovo antidarvinizma [The last word in anti-Darwinism] (Krasnodar: Burevestnik, 1923); A. M. Nikol'skii, “Nomogenez Berga” [Berg's nomogenesis], Uchenye zapiski Narkomprosa Ukrainy, 1, no. 1 (1923), 229–256; and many others.

  21. See his commentary in G. V. Plekhanov, Osnovnye voprosy Marksizma [Basic questions of Marxism] (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1923), pp. 120–122.

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  22. V. Sarab'ianov, “Nazrevshii vopros” [A burning issue], Sputnik kommunista, no. 20 (1923), 215–234.

  23. Against the mutation theory: D. Gul'be, “Darvinizm i teoriia mutatsii” [Darwinism and the mutation theory], Pod znamenem marksizma, nos. 8–9 (1924), 157–166. In favor of the mutation theory: F. Duchinskii, “Darvinizm i mutatsionnaia theoriia” [Darwinism and the mutation theory], ibid., no. 3 (1925), pp. 128–139.

  24. Ocherki po teorii evoliutsii, with a foreword by B. M. Zavadovskii (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Krasnaia Nov', 1924).

  25. Ibid., p. 8.

  26. Ibid., pp. 197, 103, 104, and 126.

  27. See, for example, N. K. Kol'tsov “Noveishie popytki dokazat' nasledstvennost' blagopreobretennykh priznakov” [Newest attempts to prove the inheritance of acquired characteristics], Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 2 (1924), 159–167; T. H. Morgan and Iu. A. Filipchenko, Nasledstvenny li priobretennye priznaki [Are acquired characteristics inherited?] (Leningrad: Seiatel', 1925); V. I. Taliev, Organizm, sreda i prisposoblenie [Organism, environment, and adaptation] (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1926), pp. 133–142; F. G. Dobrzhanskii, Chto i kak nasleduetsia u zhivykh sushchestv? [What is inherited in living organisms and in what way?] (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1926), pp. 51–64; S. S. Chetverikov, “O nekotorykh momentakh ...,” pp. 6–7; and many others.

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  28. The Socialist Academy was established in 1918 and given the task of studying the problems of social sciences from the viewpoint of dialectical and historical materialism. Its members were the most authoritative experts in these doctrines, and the great majority were members of the Communist Party, holding important posts in Party and state organs. The Socialist Academy was renamed the Communist Academy in 1924. In 1936 it was liquidated.

  29. Vestnik sotsialisticheskoi akademii, 6 (1923), 421.

  30. A. K. Timiriazev, a physicist and professor at Moscow University, was the son of the famous biologist Kliment Arkadevich Timiriazev (1845–1920), after whom the institute was named.

  31. Mekhanisticheskoe estestvoznanie i dialekticheskii materializm (Vologda: Severnyi pechatnik, 1925), p. 7.

  32. The term “karyotype” was suggested almost simultaneously by L. N. Delone (1922) and G. A. Levitskii (1924) (see note 36 below), that is, long before it was proposed by Battaglia (1952), who is often credited with priority. See, for example, R. Rieger, A. Michealis, and M. M. Green, Glossary of Genetics and Cytogenetics, 3rd ed. (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1968). In the 4th edition of Glossary (1976) this mistake is corrected (p. 231).

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  33. Arkhiv Akademii nauk SSSR (Moscow), fond 365, opis' 1, delo 79, list 1 (1926). [The Archives of the Academy of Sciences USSR has its central office in Moscow, where most of the holdings are located, and a branch in Leningrad. Soviet archival holdings are classified according to four numbers: fond (fund); opis' (inventory number); delo (item); and list (page or sheet).-M.B.A.]

  34. M. S. Navashin, “Problema proiskhozhdeniia zhizni v svete tsitologicheskogo issledovaniia” [The problem of the origin of life in light of cytological research], Vestnik kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 14 (1925), 175.

  35. Ibid., pp. 180, 177, 182.

  36. Since 1911, S. G. Navashin had been opposed to the theory of chromosome individuality. He expressed a strongly negative attitude to this theory in the following works: ‘O nekotorykh priznakakh vnutrennei organizatsii khromosom” [On certain characteristics of internal chromosome organization], Sbornik posviashchennyi K. A. Timiriazevu (Moscow, 1916), pp. 185–214 (the reprint is dated 1914); “Printsip preemstvennosti i novye metody v uchenii o kletke vysshikh rastenii” [The continuity principle and new methods in the study of the cells of higher plants], Zhurnal russkogo botanicheskogo obshchestva, 1 (1916), 1–34. On Navashin's views concerning chromosome individuality, see G. A. Levitskii, Material'nye osnovy nasledstvennosti [The material basis of heredity] (Kiev: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo Ukariny, 1924), pp. 141–142.

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  37. S. G. Navashin, Neomendelizm [Neo-Mendelism] (Vologda: Severnyi pechatnik, 1926), p. 36.

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  38. S. G. Navashin, Neomendelizm [Neo-Mendelism] (Vologda: Severnyi pechatnik, 1926), pp. 38–39.

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  39. For a description of this theory and a critique of it, see Levitskii, Material'nye osnovy nasledstvennosti, pp. 32–33.

  40. See M. S. Nawaschin, “Variabilität des Zellkerns bei Crepis-Arten in Bezug auf die Artbildung,” Z. Zellforch., 4 (1926), 177–215. See also “Morphologische Kernstudien der Crepis-Arten in Bezug auf die Artbildung,” ibid., 2 (1925), 98–111, where he expressed his strong opposition to the chromosomal theory of heredity (p. 108).

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  41. Testimony to this change in Navashin's views is to be found in a letter of Th. G. Dobzhansky to Filipchenko, written from Pasadena and dated May 23, 1929: “Even M. S. Navashin, a stubborn cytologist of a peculiar Russian type, seems to come to this conclusion ... We spent a night together and had a nice chat. I got the impression that a year and a half here have shaken his convictions and he is very close to a sensible attitude to things.” (Arkhiv Iu. A. Filipchenko, Publichnaia biblioteka imeni M. A. Saltykova-Shchedrina, Leningrad, fond 813, no. 283, list 44 and reverse.) [The letter is handwritten in Russian.-M.B.A.]

  42. Arkhiv Akademii nauk SSSR, fond 356, opis' 1, delo 276, list 54. See also G. G. Bosse, Zadachi Timiriazevskogo nauchno-issledovatel'skogo instituta izucheniia propagandy estestvennonauchnykh osnov dialekticheskogo materializma, ego organizatsiia i rabota [The tasks of the Timiriazev Scientific Research Institute for the study and propaganda of the scientific foundations of dialectical materialism, its organization and activities] (Vologda: Severnyi pechatnik, 1925).

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  43. Pamiati Lesgafta. K XXX-letiiu Nauchnogo Instituta imeni P. F. Lesgafta (Moscow, 1924), V. A. Obukh was the editor of this collective work. Obukh received a medical education. He joined the Communist Party in 1894 and headed the Moscow Municipal Department of Health from 1919 to 1929. In November 1924, he founded a scientific society of physicians called Leninism in Medicine. This society put the views of Lamarck and lesgaft [Leshaft] at the basis of their understanding of the “application of the ideas of dialectical materialism in biology and medicine.” Concerning the views of Lesgaft (1837–1909), see A. E. Gaissinovitch, “Problems of Variation and Heredity in Russian Biology in the Late Nineteenth Century,” J. Hist. Biol., 6 (1973), 108–112.

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  44. Arkhiv AN SSSR, fond 356, opis' 2, delo 75, list 55. See also G. G. Bosse, Ot nezhivogo k zhivomu [From the inanimate to the living] (Vologda: Severnyi pechatnik, 1925).

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  45. Arkhiv AN SSSR, fond 356, opis' 1, delo 29a, list 20.

  46. Ibid., delo 74, list 20. Refer also to the book of G. G. Bosse, Zadachi, p. 17.

  47. Vestnik sotsialisticheskoi akademii, no. 6 (1923), 433.

  48. Vestnik kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 2 (1925), 398.

  49. Except for the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity (Institut vysshei nervnoi deiatel'nosti), founded also in 1925.

  50. He later published the monograph Gemorragicheskie diatezi (Hemorrhagic diathesis] (1929).

  51. I. D. Sapir was a psychoneurologist, S. Ia Kaplanskii (1898–1965) a biochemist, S. S. Vail' (1898-) a pathologist and anatomist.

  52. S. G. Levit, “Evoliutsionnye teorii v biologii i marksizm” [Marxism and theories of biological evolution], Vestnik sovremennoi meditsiny, no. 9 (1925). I quote from the book Meditsina i dialekticheskii materializm [Medicine and dialectical materialism], Trudy kruzhka vrachei-materialistov pervogo MGU za 1924–1925 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo I Moskovskogo universiteta, 1926), p. 18.

  53. Ibid., p. 28.

  54. Ibid., p. 32.

  55. S. G. Levit, Problema konstitutsii v meditsine i dialekticheskii materializm [Dialectical materialism and the problem of constitution in medicine], Trudy kruzhka Vrachei-materialistov I-go MGU za 1925–1926 gg., no. 2 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Kommunisticheskoi akademii, 1927), p. 7.

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  56. S. G. Levit, Problema konstitutsii v meditsine i dialekticheskii materializm [Dialectical materialism and the problem of constitution in medicine], Trudy kruzhka Vrachei-materialistov I-go MGU za 1925–1926 gg, no. 2 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Kommunisticheskoi akademii, 1927), p. 20.

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  57. S. G. Levit, Problema konstitutsii v meditsine i dialekticheskii materializm [Dialectical materialism and the problem of constitution in medicine], Trudy kruzhka Vrachei-materialistov I-go MGU za 1925–1926 gg., no. 2 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Kommunisticheskoi akademii, 1927), p. 32.

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  58. Stenographic record of S. G. Levit's presentation of May 4, 1930, Archiv AN SSSR, fond 421, opis' 1, delo 1, list 2.

  59. Data from questionnaires, Archiv AN SSSR, fond 386, opis'1, no. 82.

  60. T. H. Morgan, “Are Acquired Characters Inherited?” Yale Review, 13, no. 13 (1925). This article was translated into Russian and published together with a supplementary article by Filipchenko: T. G. Morgan and Iu. A. Filipchenko, Nasledstvennyi li priobretennye priznaki [Are acquired characters inherited?] (Leningrad: Seiatel', 1925). The quotation is taken from the Russian edition, p. 20.

  61. Even I. I. Agol, who as will be shown was not a supporter of Lamarckian positions, stated in 1927: “A sharp separation of genotype from phenotype is an act of coercion [nasilie] against the nature of the organism. The phenotype and genotype taken separately, alienated from each other, are pure abstractions which have nothing to do with reality. The isolated genotype does not exist in nature, nor does the isolated phenotype. Any organism is a synthesis of its genotype and phenotype. External factors have access to the germ plasm (genotype) only through the body of the organism, that is, again through the phenotype. The environment has no direct influence on the genotype, while reality is neither genotype nor phenotype separately, but pheno-genotype” (I. Agol, Dialekticheskii metod i evoliutsionnaia teoriia [Dialectical method and the theory of evolution] [Moscow/Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1927], p. 133). Needless to say, this was all written before Muller's discovery, reported in the same year.

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  62. T. H. Morgan, “The Failure of Ether to Produce Mutations in Drosophila,” Amer. Nat., 48 (1914), 705–711.

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  63. These experiments were reported by Kol'tsov only in 1930: N. K. Kol'tsov, “Ob eksperimental'nom poluchenii mutatsii” [On the experimental production of mutations], Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, 6 (1930), 242.

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  64. For example, M. S. Mann, “A Demonstration of the Stability of Genes of Drosophila melanogaster under Experimental Conditions,” J. Exp. Zool., 38 (1923), 213.

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  65. Morgan and Filipchenko, Priobretennye priznaki, pp. 48–49.

  66. V. N. Slepkov, “Nasledstvennost' i otbor u cheloveka” [Heredity and selection in man], Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 4 (1925), 102–122. The quotation is from p. 104.

  67. Ibid., p. 106.

  68. V. N. Slepkov, ibid., no. 7 (1925), 234–237. The quotation is from p. 237.

  69. M. V. Volotskoi, “Fizicheskaia kul'tura s tochki zreniia evgeniki” [Physical education from the eugenic point of view], in Fizicheskaia kul'tura v nauchnom osveshenii [Physical education in a scientific light] (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Instituta fizicheskoi kul'tury imeni P. F. Lesgafta, 1924), pp. 62–75. The quotation is from p. 69.

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  70. Morgan and Filipchenko, Priobretennye priznaki, pp. 56–57.

  71. M. V. Volotskoi, Klassovye interesy i sovremennaia evgenika [Class interests and modern eugenics] (Moscow: Zhizn'i znanie, 1925), p. 39.

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  72. Levit, Evoliutsionnye teorii, p. 21.

  73. B. M. Zavadovskii, Darvinizm i marksizm [Darwinism and Marxism] (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1926), p. 76.

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  74. B. M. Zavadovskii, Darvinizm i marksizm [Darwinism and Marxism] (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1926), p. 77.

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  75. B. M. Zavadovskii, “Darvinizm i lamarkizm i problema nasledovaniia priobretennykh priznakov,” Pod znamenem marksizma, nos. 10–11 (1925), 79–114.

  76. B. M. Zavadovskii, “Darvinizm i marksizm,” Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 15 (1926).

  77. Zavadovskii, Darvinizm i marksizm, p. 49.

  78. Zavadovskii, “Darvinizm i marksizm,” p. 227; Darvinizm i marksizm, p. 111.

  79. Zavadovskii, Darvinizm i marksizm, p. 35.

  80. M. Guyer and E. Smith, “Studies on Cylolysins: I. Some Prenatal Effects of Lens Antibodies,” J. Exp. Zool., 26 (1918), 65–92; “II. Transmission of Induced Eye Defects,” ibid., 31 (1920), 171–224; “Further Studies on Inheritance of Eye Defects Induced in Rabbits,” ibid., 38 (1924), 449–474.

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  81. G. F. Finlay, “The Effect of Different Species' Lens Antisera on Pregnant Mice and Rats and Their Progeny,” Brit. J. Exp. Biol., 1 (1924), 200; J. S. Huxley and A. M. Carr-Saunders, “Absence of Prenantal Effects of Lens Antibodies in Rabbits,” ibid., pp. 215–222.

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  82. For example, see the accounts of these experiments by advocates of the inheritance of acquired characteristics: A. P. Vladimirskii, Peredaiutsia li po nasledstvu priobretennye priznaki [Are acquired characteristics inherited?] (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1927), pp. 88–91. Vladimirskii (1886–1939) was professor of genetics at Leningrad University after Filipchenko.

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  83. Zavadovskii, Darvinizm i marksizm, p. 41.

  84. Ibid., p. 44.

  85. Ibid., p. 28.

  86. Preformizm ili epigenezis? [Preformationism or epigenesis?] (Volodga: Severnyi pechatnik, 1926).

  87. E. S. Smirnov and N. D. Leonov, “Preformatsia ili epigenezis?” [Preformation or epigenesis?], in Preformizm ili epigenezis, pp. 1–24. The quotation is from p. 9.

  88. B. S. Kuzin, “Krizis preformizma” [The crisis of preformationism], in Preformizm ili epigenezis, pp. 51–61. The quotation is from p. 54.

  89. P. Kammerer, “Vererbung erzwungener Farbveränderungen, I–IV,” Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik, 29, nos. 3–4 (1910); 33, nos. 3–4 (1912); 36, nos. 1–2 (1913); K. Herbst, Beiträge zur Entwicklungsphysiologie der Färbung und Zeichnung der Tiere. I. Der Einfluss gelber, weisser und schwarzer Umgebung auf die Zeichnung von Salamandra maculosa, Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, no. 7 (1919).

  90. Smirnov and Leonov, “Preformatsiia ili epigenezis,” p. 14.

  91. Ibid., p. 15.

  92. P. Kammerer, “Breeding Experiments on the Inheritance of Acquired Characters,” Nature, 111, no. 2793 (May 1923), 637–640; H. Munro Fox, “Note on Kammerer's Experiments with Cione Concerning the Inheritance of an Acquired Character,” J. Gene., 14 (1924), 89–91.

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  93. Smirnov and Leonov, “Preformatsiia ili epigenezis,” p. 18.

  94. Kuzin, “Krizis preformizma,” p. 60.

  95. F. G. Dobrzhanskii, “K voprosu o nasledovanii priobretennykh priznakov” [On the problem of the inheritance of acquired characters], in Preformizm ili epigenezis, pp. 27–47. The quotation is from p. 40.

  96. Ibid., p. 44.

  97. Ibid., p. 46.

  98. K. K. Ostrovskii, in Preformizm ili epigenezis, p. 71.

  99. Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 17 (1926), 5.

  100. For example, see their publications: F. Lenz, “Der Fall Kammerer und seine Umfilmung durch Lunatscharsky”, Archiv fur Rassen- und Gesselschafts Biologie, 21 (1929), 311; L. Plate, Vererbungslehre, vol. 2 (Jena, 1933), p. 1175; W. Zimmermann, Vererbung erzwungener Eigenschaften und Auslese (Jena, 1938), pp. 6–7.

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  101. Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 16 (1926), 289.

  102. According to Kammerer's biographer, Arthur Koestler, Kammerer visited the Soviet Embassy in Vienna in September 1926 in order to make arrangements for transporting the equipment “which he ordered for his future experimental institute in Moscow.” Koestler confused the Communist Academy with the Academy of Sciences, saying that Kammerer was invited by the “Soviet Academy” to “Pavlov's Institute,” which, as is well known, was situated in Leningrad. (A. Koestler, The Case of the Midwife Toad [London: Pan Books, 1971], pp. 113–114.)

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  103. G. K. Noble, “Kammerer's Alytes”, Nature, 118, no. 209 (August 7, 1926). For details, see Koestler, Midwife Toad, p. 94 and subsequent pages.

  104. Koestler's fantasies that “the Russians ... had their own sources of information at the Vienna Institute through a Party member or a sympathizer” that strengthened their “conviction in Kammerer,” and that “somebody else injected the ink,” are of course completely unsubstantiated (Midwife Toad, p. 114). They are refuted by the contents of the official obituary published by the academy, unknown to Koestler. As appears clear from this obituary, the academy's “conviction” was based on their belief that Kammerer was persecuted for political rather than scientific reasons. “The fact of Kammerer's emigration to the USSR was, as we expected, a cause of new attacks.” “Sympathies” for Kammerer blended with “sympathies” for the USSR (Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 17 [1926], p. 6). This explanation is also insufficiently substantiated.

  105. Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 17 (1926), 5–6.

  106. As late as 1929, O Iu. Shmidt acknowledged that “we invited him as a persecuted materialist to provide him with the opportunity to develop his methods. By this we did not mean to show solidarity with his mechanistic Lamarkist approach, but I will reiterate that I do not consider mechanistic Lamarckism fully refuted” (Zadachi marksistov v oblasti estestvoznaniia [Tasks of Marxists in the natural sciences] [Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Kommunisticheskoi akademii, 1929], p. 21.

  107. Since only Chetverikov's last name appeared in the obituary, suspicion also fell on S. S. Chetverikov's brother, Nikolai S. Chetverikov, a statistician. However, S. S. Chetverikov's authorship seemed more probable, since he was an irreconcilable opponent of Lamarckism.

  108. Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 17 (1926), 8.

  109. Chetverikov's refutation was published in the form of a letter to the editor of Izvestiia on the following day, October 8, 1926. It was accompanied by a letter by Kol'tsov in Chtverikov's defense.

  110. Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 17 (1926), 8. Even in 1929, O. Iu. Shmidt continued to insist that it was necessary to repeat Kammerer's experiments. “We are still faced with the objectives of completing Kammerer's work, at least in order to stop arguing about it” (Zadachi marksistov, p. 122). The administration of the Department of Natural and Exact Sciences placed primary emphasis on repeating Kammerer's experiments on salamanders, perhaps owing to Kammerer's assertion that he observed mendelian segregation when crossing the forms with newly acquired body coloring, induced by factors in the environment in which the generations were bred. This point was illustrated by the remark of Iu. M. Vermel' in response to Shmidt's report in 1929: “Comrade Levit, you know perfectly well why we've chosen the salamander, but our experiments are not limited to it” (Zadachi marksistov, p. 79).

  111. E. S. Smirnov was a professor of entomology at Moscow University. Both Kuzin and Vermel' received their biological education at this same University, graduating in 1925 and 1926, respectively.

  112. The Institute of Red Professors, a privileged institution of higher education, was established in Moscow (1921–1930) to provide Marxist education for state and party officials and also to provide research facilities for talented young communists, primarily those who had participated in the October Revolution and Civil War. During the initial period the program of the institute was restricted to the humanities, but later a specialized department of natural sciences was established.

  113. I. I. Agol, Khochu zhit': povest' [I want to live: a narrative] (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1936).

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  114. Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi Revoliutsii [Central State Archive of the October Revolution], fond 5284, delo 235, list 13.

  115. I. I. Agol, “Dialektika i metafizika v biologii” [Dialectics and metaphysics in biology], Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 3 (1926).

  116. I. I. Agol, Dialekticheskii metod i evoliutsionnaia teoriia [Dialectical method and the theory of evolution] (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1927).

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  117. See A. S. Serebrovskii and V. V. Sakharov, “Novye mutatsii u Drosophila melanogaster” [New mutations in Drosophila melanogaster], Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, ser. A, 1 (1925), 75–91; A. S. Serebrovskii, “Vliianie gena purple na krossingover mezhdu Black i cinnabar u Drosophila melanogaster” [The effect of the gene “purple” on crossing over between “Black” and “cinnabar” in Drosophila melanogaster], ibid., 2 (1926), 55–100. For details on the second article referred to above, see N. I. Shapiro, “Pamiati A. S. Serebrovskogo” [In memory of A. S. Serbbrovskii], Genetika, 2, no. 9 (1966), 7–9; and A. E. Gaissinovitch, “Problemy istorii genetiki v sovetskikh publikatsiiakh poslednikh let” [problems in the history of genetics in recent Soviet publications], ibid., 13, no. 2 (1977), 358–359.

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  118. Here and below, the handwritten manuscript of Serebrovskii's report “Theses” is quoted (Archiv AN SSSR, fond 350, opis' la, no. 73, list 1 and reverse).

  119. A. S. Serebrovskii, “Teoriia nasledstvennosti Morgana i Mendelia i marksisty” [Marxists and the theory of heredity of Mendel and Morgan], Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 3 (1926), 98–117.

  120. Slepkov, “Nasledstvennost' i otbor”, p. 104.

  121. Serebrovskii, “Teoriia nasledstvennosti Morgana,” p. 105. In referring to Muller's investigation, Serebrovskii obviously had in mind his earlier works, for example his work on the effect of x-rays on crossing over (Amer. Nat., 60 [1926], 192–195) rather than his discovery of mutations artificially induced by x-rays.

  122. Before Muller's discovery (1927) nobody in the USSR, much less abroad, paid any attention to investigations reported in 1925 by G. A. Nadson and G. S. Filippov that proved that hereditary variations in mold fungi could be induced under the influence of x-rays (Vestnik rentgenologii i radiologii, 3, 1925).

  123. Quoted from the stenographic record of the report (Arkhiv AN SSSR, fond 350, opis' la, no. 73, list 21).

  124. Serebrovskii, “Teoriia nasledstvennosti Morgana”, p. 113.

  125. Arkhiv AN SSSR, fond 350, opis' la, no. 73, list 45, 47.

  126. Ibid., list 52.

  127. Ibid., list 31.

  128. Ibid., list 35.

  129. R. Levine, Sovetskaia respublika v Miunkhene [Soviet republic in Munich] (Moscow, 1926), p. 56.

  130. A photocopy of the reward notice is reproduced in N. Zastenker, Bavarskaia sovetskaia respublika [Bavarian Soviet Republic] (Moscow, 1934), p. 144.

  131. His biographical data have been obtained from “Avtobiografia” (his autobiography) and his questionnaire, which are in the Moscow University Archive (Arkhiv Moskovskogo universiteta, fond 1, opis' 34, nos. 5070 and 5071).

  132. See Mekhanisticheskoe estestvoznanie i dialekticheskii materializm [Mechanistic science and dialectical materialism] (Vologda: Sevenyi pechatnik, 1925), pp. 35–46.

  133. E. S. Smirnov, Problema nasledovaniia priobretennykh priznakov: Kriticheskii obzor literatury [The problem of the inheritance of acquired characteristics: a critical review of the literature] (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Komakademii, 1927); P. A. Novikov, Teoriia epigeneza v biologii: Istorikosistematicheskii ocherk [The theory of epigenesis in biology: a systematic historical survey] (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Komakademii, 1927).

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  134. Pravda, no. 103 (May 13, 1927).

  135. Ibid.

  136. Pravda, no. 47 (Feb. 26, 1927).

  137. F. Duchinskii, “Darvinizm, lamarkizm i neodarvinizm” [Darwinism, Lamarckism, and Neo-Darwinism], Pod znamenem marksizma, nos. 7–8 (1926), 121.

  138. Quoted from the stenographic record, Arkhiv AN SSSR, fond 350, opis' la, no. 73, list 3.

  139. Ibid., list 2.

  140. Ibid., list 18.

  141. Ibid., list 3.

  142. Ibid., list 34. Chetverikov called Smirnov's report a “political denunciation”.

  143. Ibid., list 26.

  144. M. M. Mestergazi, Osnovnye problemy organicheskoi evoliutsii [The fundamental problems of organic evolution] (Moscow, 1930).

  145. M. M. Mestergazi, “Epigenezis i genetika,” Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, no. 19 (1927), 187–252.

  146. Ibid., p. 231.

  147. See IV e conférence internationale de génétique, Paris 1911, comptes rendus et rapports (Paris: Masson, 1913).

  148. P. W. Whiting's letters to N. K. Kol'tsov are kept in the archive of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Arkhiv AN SSSR, fond 450, opis' 3, no. 172).

  149. A Gaissinovitch, “Issledovanie iavleniia bessamtsovosti u Drosophila phalerata” [Research on the pheomenon of malelessness in Drosophila phalerata], Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, ser. A, 4 (1928), 233–250.

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  150. H. J. Muller, “Artificial Transmutation of the Gene,” Science, 66, no. 1699 (July 22, 1927), 84–87.

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  151. Pravda, no. 207 (September 11, 1927). The title of Serebrovskii's article is clearly a paraphrase of the title of the famous book Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) by John Reed, where he described his firsthand impressions of the great October Revolution.

  152. According to official data, the number of Soviet delegates was sixty-four, as compared with sixty-one American and forty-five English delegates.

  153. A. S. Serebrovskii, “V Internatsional'nyi geneticheskii kongress” [Vth International Congress of Genetics], Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi akademii, 23 (1927), 212–225, the quotation is from p. 212.

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  154. S. S. Chetverikov's article, written in 1926, was first translated into English in 1961: S. S. Chetverikov, “On Certain Aspects of the Evolutionary Process from the Standpoint of Modern Genetics,” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 105, no. 2, 167–195. I know of only two references to the original Russian publication: H. A. Timoféeff-Ressovsky and N. W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, “Genetische Analyse einer freilebender Drosophila melanogaster-Populationen,” Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik, 109, no. 1 (1927), 70–109; and Th. G. Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), pp. 41–42, 126. J. B. S. Haldane cited Chetverikov's report at the congress (J. B. S. Haldane, The Causes of Evolution [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1932], p. 193).

  155. Serebrovskii, “Geneticheskii kongress,” p. 214. He is referring to H. Przibram's report.

  156. Ibid., p. 213.

  157. Ibid., p. 226.

  158. See M. L. Levin (Levien), “Stimmen aus deutschen Urwaldes,” Unter d. Banner d. Marxismus, no. 4–5 (1928), which was directed against German racism.

  159. A. S. Serebrovskii, N. P. Dubinin, I. I. Agol, V. N. Slepkov, and V. E. Al'tshuler, “Poluchenie mutatsii rentgenovskimi luchami u Drosophila melanogaster” [Mutations induced in Drosophila melanogaster by x-rays], Zhurnal eksperimental'noi biologii, 4 (1928), 161–180.

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  160. “Ot prezidiuma Kommunisticheskoi akademii” [From the Presidium of the Communist Academy] in Trudy 2 Vsesoiuznoi konferentsii marksistkoleninskikh nauchnykh uchrezhdenii, no. 1 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Kommunisticheskoi akademii, 1929), p. 3.

  161. Shortly before the conference I. I. Agol was appointed director of this institute, which was under the “Narkompros” RSFSR (People's Commissariat of Education of the Russian Republic). S. G. Navashin, who had held this position before Agol, accepted the presidency of the Scientific Council of the institute. As we can conclude from the order of Glavnauka (Central Administration of Scientific Institutions of Narkompros), issued on March 22, 1929, the idea of appointing Agol to this position stemmed from plans to reorganize the institute in order to halt its independent approach to philosophy and science. Thus in the order we read: “5. We encourage Comrade Agol to subordinate the institute's methodological activities to those of the Communist Academy ... 6. To organize the genetic laboratory under Professor A. S. Serebrovskii ... 8. To discharge Comrade S. S. Perov from his position at the institute and transfer him to the office of the Central Committee of the V.K.P.(b) [Communist Party]” (Arkhiv AN SSSR, fond 356, opis' 1, list 1). Therefore, it was not without sarcasm that Agol stated in his presentation to the conference: “Unfortunately due to its [the institute's] reorganization and changes in administration, we had to cancel our report at this conference ... I came to this conference to represent the reorganized Timiriazev Institute, ready to work hand in hand with all other Marxist-Leninist scientific institutions of the USSR and with the Communist Academy in particular” (Trudy 2 Vsesoiuznoi konferentsii, p. 91).

  162. Trudy 2 Vsesoiuznoi konferentsii, p. 84.

  163. The firm Salamander appeared on Soviet screens at the end of 1928. It was a political detective story which did not correspond at all with the real circumstances of Kammerer's suicide, dwelling on imaginary twists and turns in his struggle to prove the truth of his results on the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The film drew sharp criticism not only abroad, but also from Soviet geneticists. Thus Serebrovskii wrote: “In his film Salamander Lunacharskii thrust class elements into this issue [Lamarckism] even more boldly; the revolutionary intelligentsia, Narkompros RSFSR, etc., are for the inheritance of acquired characteristics, while clerics, bankers, fascists, and counterfeiters are against it. According to Lunacharskii, Lamarckist investigations are bound to destroy the belief in a hereditary aristocracy, which therefore aggressively opposes Lamarck's doctrine” (A. S. Serebrovskii, “Opyt kachestvennoi kharakteristiki protsessa organicheskoi evoliutsii” [An attempt to characterize qualitatively the process of organic evolution], Estestvoznanie i marksizm, no. 2 [1929], 53). Speaking about his meetings with Kammerer, A. V. Lunacharskii confessed: “I am not sufficiently qualified in biology to be able to say right now with certainty whether one side or the other in this dispute is absolutely right. But it is hard to reject the worldwide sympathy for advocates of the direct dependence of the living organism on the environment, including hereditary phenomena.” He adds, however: “On the other hand, there were quiet rumors about the other, dark sides of Kammerer's life, its social and family aspects, etc.” (A. V. Lunacharskii, “Kak voznik stsenarii ‘Salamandra’,” [How the scenario for Salamander came about], Sovetskii ekran, no. 1 [1929], 4.)

  164. Trudy 2 Vsesoiuznoi konferentsii, p. 84.

  165. Ibid., p. 45.

  166. Ibid., p. 61.

  167. Levit apparently referred to Serebrovskii's laboratory at the Moscow Zootechnical Institute.

  168. Trudy 2 Vsesoiuznoi konferentsii, p. 62.

  169. Ibid., p. 108.

  170. Ibid., p. 122.

  171. Ibid.

  172. Ibid.

  173. The scientists who participated in this work and later published papers on it were N. P. Dubinin, I. I. Agol, A. E. Gaissinovitch, A. S. Serebrovskii, S. G. Levit, N. I. Shapiro, and B. N. Sidorov (1929–1931). See the following review of this work: A. S. Serebrovskii and N. P. Dubinin, “Iskusstvennoe poluchenie mutatsii i problema gena” [Artificial induction of mutations and the problem of the gene], Uspekhi eksperimental'noi biologii, 8 (1929), 235–247; English version, “X-ray Experiments with Drosophila,” J. Hered., 21. See also M. Artsimovich, “Stupenchatyi allelomorfizm” [Step allelomorphism], Trudy po prikladnoi botanike, genetike i selektsii, 11th ser., no. 6 (1934), 185–203.

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  174. The Medico-Biological Institute was established in 1924 by V. F. Zelenin (1881–1968), who originally directed it toward different tasks. The first collection of works by the Office of Heredity and Human Constitution was published in 1929 (Mediko-biologicheskii zhurnal, no. 5, and separate offprint).

  175. In 1935 the Medico-Biological Institute was renamed the Maxim Gorkii Institute of Medical Genetics. In 1937 Levit was dismissed from the post of director of the institute, which was then disbanded. During his period of activity there, the institute published four volumes of papers (1929, 1930, 1934, and 1936).

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    A. E. Gaissinovitch

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Translated by Mark B. Adams Department of History and Sociology of Science University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

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Gaissinovitch, A.E. The origins of Soviet genetics and the struggle with Lamarckism, 1922–1929. J Hist Biol 13, 1–51 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00125353

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