Soviet genetics and the communist party: was it all bad and wrong, or none at all?

Abstract

The history of genetics and the evolutionary theory in the USSR is multidimensional. Only in the 1920s after the October Revolution, and due in large part to that Revolution, the science of genetics arose in Soviet Russia. Genetics was limited, but not obliterated in the second half of the 1950s, and was restored in the late 1960s, after the resignation of Nikita S. Khrushchev. In the subsequent period, Soviet genetics experienced a resurgence, though one not as successful as geneticists would have liked. The Communist party bodies interfered constantly, but with different consequences for the development of genetics than when the earlier periods. The main troubles for Soviet genetics occurred during the unique, well-known, most contradictory, and tragic Stalinist period. The start date for the defeat of genetics is also known-August, 1948. In the social history of science and especially in the history of evolutionary biology (including genetics) it is natural, necessary, and even expected to adopt an evolutionary approach. In particular, historians of science need to consider and explain the evolution and dependence of Soviet science in regards to the evolution of Soviet society, the Soviet state, and the Communist party. This evolutionary perspective reflects the standards of evolutionary biology, evolutionary macrosociology, and also the history of science.