In the Soviet Union, views on all intellectual subjects—the social sciences, philosophy, and even the biological and physical sciences—are frequently regarded as expressions of political views. As a consequence, all intellectual fields are considered appropriate arenas for the struggle against “reaction” and other supposed manifestations of “bourgeois” ideology. To consider science a-political and supra-national, or to speak approvingly of “world science” or “world culture,” is to subscribe to the “bourgeois” ideology of “cosmopolitism”—an ideology which is assumed by virtue of its universalist emphasis to deprecate the contributions to culture made by individual nations.

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¹ All page numbers in parentheses refer to the English translation of the Proceedings of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the U.S.S.R., July 31-August 7, 1948, Complete Stenographic Report, New York, International Publishers, 1949.

² Lenin, Vladimir I., Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (Collected Works, Vol. XIII), New York, International Publishers, 1927, p. 317.Google Scholar All italics mine unless other wise indicated.

³ Mal'tsev, V., “Problema neobkhodimost is luchainosti v uchenii Charl'sa Darvina,” Pod Znamenem Marksisma, 1939, No. 9, p. 90.Ibid., p. 269.)

¹³ Mitin, M., “Za peredovuiu sovetskuiu geneticheskuiu nauku,” Pod Znamenem Martsistna, 1939, No. 10, p. 150.Google Scholar Translation mine.

¹⁴ Lysenko, Trofim D., Heredity and Its Variability, New York, King's Crown Press, 1946, p. 2.Google Scholar

¹⁵ My alteration of the translation, p. 614.

¹⁷ Novinsky, I. I., “Principles of Michurin-Lysenko Biology,” Voprosy Filosofii, 1949Google Scholar, No. 1, as translated in Digest, II, No. 5 (March 18, 1950), p. 7.

¹⁹ “Protiv burzhuaznoi ideologii kosmopolitizma,” Voprosy Filosofii, 1948, No. 2, p. 23. Translation mine.

²² Lysenko, Trofim D., “On the Tasks of Agricultural Science,” Izvestia, Nov. 2, 1948Google Scholar, as translated in Digest, I, No. 45 (Dec. 6, 1949), p. 48.

²⁵ Stoletov, V. N., “Printsipi uchenia I. V. Michurina,” Voprosy Filosofii, 1948, No. 2, p. 155.Google Scholar Translation mine.

²⁶ Western geneticists maintain that if the gene does not exist, something very like it does, and that therefore it is useful as an analytical concept.

²⁷ Modifications are differences in organisms which are not due to differences in hereditary constitution, but rather to differences in environment, habits and activity. Modifications do not affect the reproductive cells which carry the hereditary material.

²⁸ Lysenko, , Heredity and Its Variability, cited above, p. 22.Google Scholar

²⁹ Polyakov, I. M., Address at 1939 Conference on Genetics and Selection, Pod Znamenem Marksisma, 1939, No. 11, p. 176.Google Scholar

³⁰ Western geneticists explain evolution on the basis of (a) mutations (changes in the hereditary constitution of organisms), and (b) natural selection. The environment plays a role in natural selection to the extent that it favors the survival of better adapted organisms over those less well adapted for survival in that particular environment.

³¹ “Soviet Science Willingly and Voluntarily Serves the People,” Pravda, Aug. 27, 1948, as translated in Zirkle, , op. cit., p. 291.Google Scholar

³² Zhdanov, , op. cit., p. 270.Google Scholar My modification of translation.

³³ Novoe Vremya, 1949, No. 2, p. 10. Translation mine.

³⁴ Glushkenko, I., “Reactionary Genetics in the Service of Imperialism,” Pravda, April 5, 1949Google Scholar, as translated in Digest, I, No. 14 (May 3, 1949), p. 55.

³⁵ Nuzhdin, N. I., “Soviet Genetics: The Real Issue,” Nature, CLXV, No. 4201 (May 6, 1950), p. 706.Google Scholar

³⁶ “Za rastsvet peredovoi sovetskoi biologicheskoi nauki,” Bolshevik, 1948, No. 15, p. 2. Translation mine.

³⁷ “Torzhestvo sovetskoi biologicheskoi nauki,” Voprosy Filosofii, 1948, No. 2, p. 129. Translation mine.

³⁹ Cf. Proceedings of the Lenin Academy, pp. 336–337.