The Lysenko Controversy as a Global Phenomenon, Volume 1 by William deJong-Lambert & Nikolai Krementsov

Author:William deJong-Lambert & Nikolai Krementsov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Conclusions

The NKZS was by far the most important promoter of Lysenko. Neither Lysenko nor the media pushed the ministry into embracing his work uncritically. The sources I have analyzed in this chapter strongly suggest that flawed decision-making at the NKZS stemmed from scientific incompetence, rather than pressure from the party-state. To make definitive statements on this question without additional material from the relevant Ukrainian archives is impossible. Further research should focus on the decision-making processes and structures within the NKZS of the late 1920s.

To this end, finding documents revealing how the scientific aspects of Lysenko’s work were discussed internally by the NKZS is crucial. Two issues seem particularly important: One, how was the news of the discovery handled initially in mid-July 1929? Two, did someone suggest asking a scientific institute for assistance in the evaluation process, and, if so, how was this overruled? It is also crucial to find documents showing how the NKZS formally adopted decisions. 101 If further archival findings provide conclusive evidence of my view that the NKZS was ill-informed rather than pressured, Lysenko’s father becomes a decisive figure in his son’s rise to the heights of Stalin’s Soviet Union. By informing the NKZS, rather than a scientific institute about the result of his field experiment, he handed his son’s seed treatment to a group of people unqualified to assess it. As pressure from the Moscow party elite as a significant factor for Lysenko’s early success becomes less likely, individuals and organizations that have been largely ignored become more important. For instance, too little is known about the interactions of the NKZS with the UGSI during the second half of 1929. In this regard, finding archival material which would shed light on Sapegin’s contact with the ministry seems particularly promising. 102

The lesson to be drawn from the waste of Soviet agricultural resources and manpower as a result of the flawed decision-making at the NKZS is not so much about the professional competences state officials should have. Rather, it is about the administrative-political competences they should not have. By nature, bad decisions by state officials are never subject to the clear and unavoidable feedback that bad decisions made in the marketplace usually trigger. Had Soviet peasants been free from state coercion and worked for their own profit, vernalization would, without any doubt, not have been adopted at all or been disposed of much faster. Because every state administration has its share of incompetent and self-opinionated officials, perhaps we should be more alert about the possible “side-effects” of governments having, for instance, the authority to subsidize renewable forms of energy, or central banks having the power to create money out of thin air. Surely, reducing pollution and stimulating the economy are noble goals. But so was raising Soviet crop yields.

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