Vadim Birstein - The Perversion of Knowledge

In 1950–1951, three employees of the society with Jewish last names were dismissed. 437One of them, the MOIP scientific secretary, the outstanding botanist and historian of biology Sergei Lipschitz (1905–1983), was in charge of publishing the multivolume Dictionary of Russian Botanists . The publication was stopped in 1952 after four volumes had been published. Four more volumes, prepared by Lipschitz, have never been printed. Academician Sukachev, chief editor of the Dictionary , and the MOIP vice president, Corresponding Member Pavel Baranov, were ordered to report to the Central Committee about the Dictionary . 438The meeting was presided over by the Politburo main ideologist, Mikhail Suslov. The highest Party officials could not believe the information they heard—in 1952, during the peak of the “fight against cosmopolitans,” an author with the Jewish name Lipschitz dared to publish a dictionary that contained biographies of the enemies of people, emigrants, and so forth. Lipschitz even tried to include the biography of Lysenko’s archenemy Nikolai Vavilov in the second volume with information about his death. The date was given as January 23, 1943, which is wrong. But one can only guess how difficult it must have been during Stalin’s time when the fate of Vavilov was kept completely secret for Dr. Lipschitz to even find out that Vavilov had died.

No wonder the Central Committee was angered by Lipschitz. Lipschitz had personally met Vavilov and Lysenko, and his attitude toward Lysenko was known among biologists. Later, Lipschitz recalled his last meeting with Vavilov at the Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem) in 1938 or 1939:

Vavilov was very gloomy. No doubt, with his bright mind, he understood the approaching threat and saw that a storm would come…. One could hear Lysenko’s hoarse voice in the next hall. It reminded me [of the] barking of a dog who caught cold. In a dictator’s style he pronounced non-logical, “true” ideas, disconnected with each other, about the transition of the dandelion [ Taraxacum officinale ] into the kok-saghyz [ T. kok-saghyz ] and back. Lysenko’s appearance and the style of his speeches were very similar to those of Hitler’s. (It is a mystery that nobody has noticed this similarity before.) In my opinion, the coincidence was not accidental. Both were paranoiacs. 439

At the beginning of 1953, during a search at Lipschitz’s apartment, the MGB confiscated all materials prepared for the Dictionary . It seems that only Stalin’s death saved Lipschitz from arrest. Both Sukachev and Baranov helped Lipschitz to find a job at the Academy Botanical Institute in Leningrad.

Academician Sukachev was elected MOIP president in 1955, but the anti-Lysenkoist publications in the society’s Bulletin started earlier. 440It is difficult to even imagine how the society managed to persuade a censor (in the Soviet Union, every scientific article was approved for publication by a censor) in 1956 not to stop publication of the anti-Lysenko article written by Efroimson, who was just released from a labor camp. 441

The vertebrate zoologist (mammologist) Veniyamin Tsalkin (1903–1970), who was vice chief editor of the Bulletin , helped Sukachev to continue the society’s anti-Lysenkoist campaign. In fact, Tsalkin was the campaign’s strategist. He was a specialist on the evolution of mammals, especially artyodactyls. 442Since 1940, Tsalkin had worked at the Biological Faculty of Moscow University, but in 1950 he was forced to leave the university because of an anti-Semitic campaign and pressure from the Lysenkoists. He started to work at the Academy Archaeology Institute, where he organized the Paleozoology Laboratory. At the Archaeology Institute, Tsalkin could continue his study on the evolution of domestic animals. He was safe from the Lysenkoists’ attacks, and at the same time, he himself could attack Lysenko and his cronies. Later, in 1966, Professor Tsalkin was elected vice president of MOIP.

As a child, I liked it when my father told me we were going to visit Dr. Tsalkin. Nonofficial discussions of MOIP actions against Lysenkoists took place at this apartment during the mid-1950s. Academician Sukachev and Dr. Tsalkin frequently invited my father to participate in the discussions. As for me, I was taken to see my friend, Dr. Tsalkin’s daughter.

Everything that surrounded Dr. Tsalkin was unusual and exciting, the location of the building (the entrance to it was from Red Square), the building itself (one of the oldest in Moscow), the apartment with its skinny corridor and a bathtub in the kitchen behind a curtain. There was an antique rack for overcoats standing in the middle of the corridor. One had to pass this rack with care: A big mean Siamese cat used to hide on its top hat-shelf. He was waiting for a victim. If someone was not attentive enough, a huge clawed paw struck the intruder of the apartment on the head from above.

But most of all I liked to meet the host of the apartment—not very tall, thin, with a completely bald head and very attentive eyes behind round glasses—he looked impressive. He had a good sense of humor and told a lot of jokes. The jokes were sharp, and I knew that many of Tsalkin’s opponents were afraid of his sharp tongue.

In 1958, the Central Committee ordered the Academy Presidium to include some Lysenkoists on the editorial board of the Botanical Journal. 443After this, the journal stopped publishing anti-Lysenkoist articles. But MOIP continued to withstand the pressure and in 1958 organized a session on genetics. For the first time since 1948, the geneticists had an opportunity to give presentations on real genetics.

Unfortunately, later on, MOIP was taken under the complete control of the Party and KGB. In September 1970, the Central Committee banned a scientific conference dedicated to the seventieth anniversary of the prominent geneticist, a pupil of Koltsov and Chetverikov, Nikolai Timofeev-Ressovsky, whose unusual life I have already described. Despite the ban, the Bulletin published a biographical article about Timofeev written by two biologists, Nikolai Vorontsov and Aleksei Yablokov. 444After this the Central Committee issued a special instruction that publishing of scientists’ biographies must be approved by the “directive organs,” meaning the Central Committee and the KGB. 445

Lysenko did not forget how much Sukachev damaged his reputation by publications in the Botanical Journal and the MOIP Bulletin . Lysenko used his connections in the Central Committee and in the academy, where in 1959 his supporter, Norair Sisakyan, replaced the anti-Lysenkoist academician Engelhardt as secretary academician of the Biology Division. In 1960, Sisakyan was appointed chief scientific secretary of the academy. 446At the August 1948 Session, Sisakyan pledged his loyalty to Lysenko:

For us biochemists the value of the heritage of the great scientist Michurin, the effectiveness and transformative character of Michurin’s theory, which has been further developed in the works of T. D. Lysenko, are determined not only by the magnificent quality of the varieties they have created, not only by the distinguished contribution they have made to biological science, but also by the fact that the Michurin theory has opened new vistas, has created wide opportunities also for biochemical research. 447

In the mid-1950s, Sisakyan became not only a high-ranking bureaucrat within the academy but also an important Soviet official abroad: In 1956, he was elected a member and vice president of the International Astronautical Academy. 448He could easily help Lysenko.

Indeed, Stalin’s time was over, and Sukachev could not be arrested. But in 1961, a decision was made at the Academy Biological Division to move the Institute of Forestry, which Sukachev had created and headed for thirty years, from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. Sukachev was too old and sick to leave Moscow. As a result, only a small laboratory was left to the former head of a big institute. 449