Soviet Genetics

The term Soviet Genetics is not meant to define a special genetics because science does not have ideological, political, or ethnic attributes and it transcends all boundaries. A sad exception is “soviet genetics,” a misnomer because it did not involve genetics at all and it collapsed before the implosion of the political system that nurtured and enforced it. Genetics in the Soviet Union had a very remarkable and successful beginning. In 1944, L.C. Dunn, Professor of Zoology at Columbia University noted: “There are today literally hundreds of trained genetical investigators in the U.S.S.R., certainly more than in any other country outside the U.S.A.” (Science 99:2563). This outstanding research and teaching establishment was destroyed, however, in 1948 and geneticists suffered humiliation, persecution, and almost total physical annihilation for a period of over 20 years by lysenkoism. lysenkoism, Mitchurin