This week’s edition of In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg focuses on the life and times of Stalin’s “Barefoot Scientist” Trofim Lysenko. As always it is a thoughtful and interesting discussion not only on how a fraud like Lysenko could rise in Stalin’s Russia, but also the regime’s general relationship to science, particularly to genetics. The discussion features Robert Service, Professor of Russian History at the University of Oxford, Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics at University College London, and Catherine Merridale, Professor of Contemporary History at Queen Mary, University of London. You can listen to the program here.
Stalin’s “Barefoot Scientist”
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Please tell me they interviewed Zhores Medvedev.
They didn’t. They only tend to have Brits on as commentators. Why Medvedev?
Zhores Medvedev (Roy’s brother) is a biologist and historian of Soviet science. Lysenko is his area. And he lives in London!
”..not only on how a fraud like Lysenko could rise in Stalin’s Russia”
Not only was he a fraud, he had a lot of conventional scientists imprisoned and/or murdered, including Vavilov. Watson’s criticism of him in his book DNA: The Secret of Life is caustic even by Watson’s standards.
But perhaps the worst thing that could have happened was that initially Lysenko had some fluky successes on a small scale -this, unfortunately cost the USSR dearly.
I think Lysenko would make a good character in a Shakespearian-style tragedy, kind of a Macbeth type who sells his soul for power (or survival or self-aggrandisement or whatever motivated Lysenko). This would work better if Lysenko himself had come to a more tragic end, but we can employ poetic license.
”I think Lysenko would make a good character in a Shakespearian-style tragedy,”
Tragedy really is the operative word. Its probably fair to say that Lysenko was responsible for millions of deaths, and it was only after Kruschev was removed that Pravda finally began to publish articles critical of him – indeed I’ve read one of the reasons for the heave against Kruschev was his persistence with Lysenko, in the face of astounding failures going back 30 years. One of the funniest episodes was tree-planting in Siberia. The Soviets wanted to plant hundreds of thousands of trees to shield agricultural plains from biting winds from the East. Lysenko was ardently anti-Darwinism (at least publicly) and used his opposition to it in the form of his own theory -that plants and animals with limited resources would co-operate and grow together (like Communists he said) rather than in competition. So the trees were all planted very close together, in clusters.
Needless to say, it was an utter failure -most of the trees died and even the survivors were handicapped. The cost; 1 billion rubles at the time.
When Lysenko died, his family requested he be buried at Novodevichy. Thankfully the request was denied.
Recently I saw an interesting video conversation between the American science writer Carl Zimmmer and British writer Peter Pringle. It was about Pringle’s new book on Nikolai Vavilov. Lysenko, of course, was a major topic of discussion.
Here is the link:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/11497?in=00:08:09&out=00:26:50
It seems that I didn’t get the links right. For the whole dialog click on the part that says “play entire dialogue” (or something like that).
“Its probably fair to say that Lysenko was responsible for millions of deaths, and it was only after Kruschev was removed that Pravda finally began to publish articles critical of him – indeed I’ve read one of the reasons for the heave against Kruschev was his persistence with Lysenko, in the face of astounding failures going back 30 years. ”
Khrushchev’s daughter was (is?) a biologist. Taubman describes her having vociferous arguments with her father about this very subject. Khrushchev insisted that even though he didn’t have much education (fourth grade, I think it was), he was a peasant, and peasants know about farming, dammit!
Hey, check this out: http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/lyse-par.html
Kolya, thanks for the link, I’ll have a look tommorow -my connection is as slow as a wet weekend at the moment and its taken about half an hour for me to download ”Destination Unknown” video on youtube. Which, for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_opSztg2B0&feature=related
I think the video maker got it just right. In comparison to those tacky R&B videos, with huge butts shaking uncontrollably, this is pure Euro class.
Thats quite interesting about Kruschevs daughter -I wasnt aware she was a scientist. Pity he didnt listen to her. One has to wonder about the atmosphere during Stalin’s/Kruschevs time, where basic science and experimental technique were eschewed in favour of a complete and utter charlatan.
“One has to wonder about the atmosphere during Stalin’s/Kruschevs time, where basic science and experimental technique were eschewed in favour of a complete and utter charlatan.”
I daresay it may have been linked to the poor educational level of the Soviet leadership. Kaganovich had, I think, two years of formal schooling (?). The first Soviet leader after Lenin to have attended a university was Andropov (who by all accounts was a very smart guy).
Those are the sexiest wind instruments I have ever seen.
”daresay it may have been linked to the poor educational level of the Soviet leadership. Kaganovich had, I think, two years of formal schooling (?). The first Soviet leader after Lenin to have attended a university was Andropov (who by all accounts was a very smart guy).”
Actualy that does make sense. There are some people who will not listen to any reasoned argument once their mind is made up, and usually they are thick as pigshit. I can imagine the protestations from Vavilov literally falling on deaf ears.
”Those are the sexiest wind instruments I have ever seen.”
Its a brilliant video and has been a massive hit in student-land over here for 6 months or so now. The moves at the end especially are cool, and the thongs arent bad either.
See? I’ve got Kaganovich’s party card right in front of me. In translation, it says (I don’t mean to knock cobblers here, but you get the idea):
Year of Birth: 1893
Nationality: Jewish
First Language: Russian
Other Languages: Ukrainian
Social Position: Worker
Profession: Cobbler
Education:
———-
General Education: Home-Schooled
Military Education in the Old Army: None
Military Education in the Red Army: None
Civilian Education: None
Party Education: None
———-
Party Membership and Date of Joining: Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 1911
Membership in Other Parties: None
Amusing anecdote — I know a guy who grew up in the same building as the elderly, post-removal from power Kaganovich lived in (Sean can probably guess who I am talking about). He says Kaganovich used to annoy the crap out of everybody by imposing himself on their conversations and trying to organize little ideological discussion cells in the building like those he was a part of before the Revolution in an apparent attempt to recapture his youth and feel useful. I actually feel kind of sorry for the guy.
He says Kaganovich used to annoy the crap out of everybody by imposing himself on their conversations…
Did he have an illegitimate offspring who grew up a US citizen and could allegedly run very fast?
Thanks for the funniest thing I’ve read today, Tim!
See? I’ve got Kaganovich’s party card right in front of me.
C’mon, this bio is too close to the Soviet Komparty ideal. I bet Stalin’s party card didn’t say he studied for priesthood and robbed banks, either.
In 1930-s USSR people did everything possible to conceal their own life stories and their ancestors.
Actually that’s a good point. You think he was covering something up? The only biography of Kag I’ve ever read is his own memoirs, in which on the one hand he’s trying to present himself in as positive a light as possible and on the other is clearly not a well-educated guy, or at least doesn’t write like one. He writes like a teenager.
The document is from the 20s BTW, not the 30s.
People told all sorts of stories about their life. People do in every society. What they told depended on the dominant conventions of autobiography, who they were writing to, or if they were filling out an application. Some people wrote short ones, some long. Details vary depending on how educated they are. People with “bourgeois” backgrounds hid their past or made new ones up. But the vast majority of people didn’t have to hide their backgrounds because they were peasants and workers and to emphasize this in got you a job, into school, the party and komsomol. People had to tell a certain narrative that conformed to what the Bolsheviks wanted to hear. The Komsomol even issued its members outlines to writing a autobiography. People emphasized certain aspects of their life but don’t we all when we? People rarely emphasize “forbidden,” taboo aspects of their lives. Or they pumped up certain information to make themselves look good.
Granted it was easy to fake in such a system. Records were bad and impostors of a variety of sorts were abundant.
Kaganovich, Stalin, Ezhov all had shit for eduction. The first two we know. Ezhov (or “Niki the Bookworm” as he was called by friends) was mostly self taught and tutored. He didn’t get an close to a real education until he was sent to a Party school. Molotov went to something akin to junior college. Khrushchev was a miner. And Lysenko was a peasant. Something should be said that for these people the Revolution was a roaring success.
I think this is what so interesting about these people. Yeah Lysenko was a fraud. But the fact that he got to where he got is extraordinary.
It would be interesting to know what Stalin had for his autobiography. He must’ve had one. Every party file did.
“He didn’t get an close to a real education until he was sent to a Party school. ”
The biography of Ezhov I have (appropriately titled “Ezhov”) talks about this as you would expect. Apparently Ezhov did a lot of (minor) falsification of his past.
Upon reflection I’m kind of wondering why Candide brought up the issue with respect to Kaganovich. Why the doubt? It’s not like the majority of the Bolshies were intellectuals from well-off backgrounds. Plus, Kaganovich writes like a very unsophisticated person. He has this very klutzy bit in his memoirs in which he tries totally naively to mechanically apply his experience as a Jew in the Russian Empire to the situation in which Black people in the United States (writing in the 1960s) for instance.
Then again, he obviously had survival skillz. My source who knew him says that Lazar liked to present himself as a simple village Jew who had gotten lucky, but sometimes it seemes a very different person could be glimpsed looking over his shoulder.
“The Komsomol even issued its members outlines to writing a autobiography.”
Do you have a copy of any of these outlines?
Do you have a copy of any of these outlines?
Yup. All sorts of similar outlines were suggested. They were also given outlines on how to write a memoir and keep a diary. Early Komsomol and Party applications required you to write autobiographies according to a variety of questions like “What did profession did you (or your parents) do during the 1917? 1918-1921?” etc.
I’m just finishing Getty’s new political biography of Ezhov. Yeah, Ezhov had some tall tales about him. Single handedly achieving victories in the Civil War. Stuff like that. But he also was at the right place at the right time. He came from Putliov (a mark of any true prol), he participated in his first strike at 17 years old. He had little education and mad survival skills. He worked hard, solved problems, was dedicated, a good politician, and rose from a lonely party functionary to one of the most powerful people in the country in a little over 10 years.
But that was the case for a lot of these guys. They didn’t have to hide much (Kalinin never hid his peasant origins, in fact he was praised because of them) because their careers were examples of the Revolution’s success. All of Stalin’s lieutenants were nobodies in 1917-1918, but by 1933 they were rapidly rising stars.
But that was the case for a lot of people. Not all of course but a lot. The Soviet system had a lot of social mobility and the system gained legitimacy because of it. The fact that there was affirmative action for “toilers” and ethnic minorities in the 1930s is quite historically unprecedented. In one generation, people went from living in a village to running state administrations. For Sheila Fitzpatrick this social mobility proves that the Revolution was a success since by the mid-1930s the “toiling masses” were running the country.
I got no dirt on Kaganovich, I just know the whole Komparty bios were grandiose sham. Everybody was hiding their real lifes, beginning with Stalin and all the way down. Yes, the Dogma was even more powerful than Stalin. People were even taking new names, such as Bedny (Poor), Bezdomny (Homeless), Bezrodny (Ancestorless?).
From personal history, my grandfather was from a family of a minor Tsarist official in a small village on Volga. That was hidden so well, I learned about it only in the 1990-s.
In theory, the uneducated manual laborer was the new king. In reality, uneducated manual laborers continued to toil “in the bowels of the Earth”, while real people attaining to new powers had more complex histories, personalities and ambitions. It is true that early Soviet leaders were poorly educated by official standards, which makes the history of their rise to power even more horribly fascinating.
Sean, to demonstrate the difference: when you appled to UCLA you might have embellished your records, to better show how bright and educated you are. If you’d apply to Moscow University in 1930-s you would have to emphasize that you know nothing besides Party dogma and not willing to learn anything outside of it.
If you’d apply to Moscow University in 1930-s you would have to emphasize that you know nothing besides Party dogma and not willing to learn anything outside of it.
Have you actually read any of these applications? Or is this just your assumption? I’ve only read requests to study (not at MGU, but to lower institutions) throughout the 1920s, and I don’t get much of this besides flat statements about building socialisms, fulfilling Lenin’s ideals etc. Most of the time people say that they should be allowed to study because as a worker or a peasant they deserved it since that is what the Revolution promised.
Most of the time people say that they should be allowed to study because as a worker or a peasant they deserved it since that is what the Revolution promised.
That was kinda the point, Sean. Did you read any applications bragging about intellectual pedigree? I mean applications to institutions of higher learning with emphasis on actual family history of academic achievement? The dearth of such applications, does it not strike you as very odd?
The dearth of such applications, does it not strike you as very odd?
I don’t know why it should strike me as odd. First most of the people applying for entry into educational institutions didn’t have those pedigrees. The apps I’ve read are
written by barely literates. Second, even if they did, they wouldn’t emphasize it as something positive since it wasn’t considered so by admission officials. It’s pretty obvious that a prospective student didn’t mention an incorrect class background. There was class discrimination. There were all sorts of legal restrictions against lishentsy until 1936 (though discrimination continued well after that). Since mentioning that you were a son of a priest was a mark against a person, I don’t know why they would brag.
Maybe I’m missing your point or don’t understand where the disagreement is. Do you think I’m suggesting that there wasn’t discrimination against people categorized as bourgeois? Because there was. A lot of it.
All I’m really saying is that people told a variety of stories about themselves according to who they were telling. They hid or were just silent about certain aspects of their lives, emphasized others, or just plain exaggerated. The only thing I see is unique in the Soviet case is that certain narratives were acceptable, and other unacceptable. You had to conform to certain tropes and provide certain information. Some people made up entire new lives for themselves. I think Shelia Fitzpatrick’s Tear off the Masks! shows this very well.
Second, I’m pointing to the real social mobility the system provided to a good number of people with backgrounds like Lysenko, Kaganovich, Ezhov and Stalin. This social mobility created a new Soviet middle class and popular support for the system. For these people who were the layer of society who did rise, the Revolution was a success. Whether these people deserved it or not is another issue.
So I guess I’m not as troubled by people hiding their pasts as you seem to be. After 1991, people rewrote their lives accordingly too. This is why I’m not surprised that you discovered a minor Tsarist official in your family linage after 1991. I’m sure a lot of people did, not because they were actively hiding it, but claiming some linage to pre-Soviet officialdom became a way to distance oneself from the now defunct Soviet system and values. I’m not saying that your grandfather wasn’t from such a family, but to emphasize this after 1991 has multiple meanings and serves a variety of purposes.
What I wonder is how Gorbachev dealt with the fact that his grandfather was kulak. Did he not mention it? Because I would assume that everyone around him knew anyway.
Gorbachev has talked about hi grandfather in interviews. Don’t ask me what he said — I can’t remember.
Andropov was from a Cossack background, and it didn’t stop him.
I bet Gorbachev and Andropov lied about their heritage too.
Khrushchev was a miner. And Lysenko was a peasant. Something should be said that for these people the Revolution was a roaring success.
I think Taubman\’s book makes it pretty clear that Khruschev would have been a success in the mining industry even had the revolution not happened. There is a very telling picture of him with his first wife dressed like a contemporary yuppie in jacket and tie, having found that his practical skills were earning him enough money to live in a decent house and drive about in a makeshift motor vehicle.
But he also was at the right place at the right time.
Until he found himself in very much the wrong place at very much the wrong time.
In one generation, people went from living in a village to running state administrations.
Looking at the state of most of these administrations, there is a lesson in there.
I’m pointing to the real social mobility the system provided to a good number of people with backgrounds like Lysenko, Kaganovich, Ezhov and Stalin.
As opposed to Victorian England that like totally thwarted Jack the Ripper.
Considering that we do not know the identity of Jack the Ripper, it is possible that the murderer was a prominent member of Her Majesty’s government. However, I believe it is doubtful.
Going bakc to science etc….
comes to mind Grahams book on Russian science and also pertinent in considering any government science policy:
“When the president of the country, as George Bush has done, makes his own comments on the validity of certain scientific views — such as biological evolution, global warming, etc. — this is a very dangerous precedent.”
I was thinking about this, and upon reflection I think the problem is not with the government making pronouncements on/making policy judgments based on certain scientific views, which all governments do that are in the business of funding science at all. This is why funding parapsychology is a low priority for most governments.
The problem is when the government does so and turns out to be wrong.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Russian national team open their Euro 2008 tournament today vs Spain, 5pm GMT, 9am LA time. Dont forget to tune in!
On the same subject, one pundit in particular is unhappy with the Russian jersey:
http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@814.aI5dbfWvWeB@.77480649/9962
The same pundit ignoring the fact that said jersey is there to represent the Russian Football Union, not the government of Russia.
“When the president of the country, as George Bush has done, makes his own comments on the validity of certain scientific views — such as biological evolution, global warming, etc. — this is a very dangerous precedent.”
Had Bush done what every other world leader has done and made comments agreeing with the “scientific concensus” on global warming, the author would not have had a problem. So really, his complaint is not that politicians express views on science, but that politicians express views on science which he happens to disagree with.
Given the political baggae attached to global warming, to the extent that it is much more a political matter than a scientific one, Bush has every right to voice his opinions on the subject.
I also disagree that his views on evolution set a dangerous precedent. I just think they are idiotic.
The first act of a new Dem. Congress in 2009 should be passing a new Amendment 28 to the US Constitution:
“The President shall make no comment on the validity of any scientific views, to avoid setting a very dangerous precedent…”
I don’t suppose anyone kept the MP3 of the programme on Lysenko? In Our Time only makes the last programme available (so Sean’s link points to the latest programme, and not to the Lysenko one). I discovered it too late to hear it, but would very much like to listen.
My interest is from the other side, if you like; N.I. Vavilov is a personal hero.
You can find it here Jeremy. I also changed the link above so it works.
Thanks so much for the link; I guess I would have turned it up in the end. Now to find time to listen properly!