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Lysenkoites, Physicists, and Scientific Cultures: Approaching the Politics of Stalinist Science

The historiographical debate surrounding the nature of Stalinist science is a crucial one for historians of the Soviet period. The central subject there – the role that politics played in science – remains pertinent today for policy makers and is equally important for historians of science. However, if the longstanding historiographical paradigm of “politicized science” is still on the agenda, the angle the old problems approached may be viewed as a different one, with a new hypothetical question at stake: why did such different outcomes occur from a similar set of political relationships with science? In my review, I would like to address this question and examine two recent English language histories that focus on the historiographical background and particularly on what may be called the institutional approach toward the subject. In addition, I will briefly remark on the methodological need for more research on the impact of Soviet science policy in the institutes away from Moscow, the center of political control. In my view, two key examples provide a useful way to frame the current debate. First, the case of Lysenko, a plant breeder seeming to exemplify the worst excesses of politicized pseudo-science during the Soviet regime. Second, postWWII physics, especially nuclear physics, as an example of the successes of Soviet science in its attempts to “catch up and overtake” the West. Of course, such a double focus does not presuppose overstating the homogeneity between these cases and downplaying the crucial differences in the mode of scientific operation and, consequently, the degree of ideological infiltration in both disciplines.