The New Biology: Lysenkoism in Poland is an examination of the impact of
one of the most notorious events in the history of science during the
Cold War: The Lysenko affair. Having suffered the worst consequences of
the race science of eugenics during the Second World War, Poland was
then subjected to a ban on genetics, one of the most productive avenues
of research in the Twentieth Century, once the war was over. Members of
the biology community were thus forced to choose between what they
understood to be legitimate research, and a pseudo-scientific doctrine,
determined rhetorically by the ideology of Marxism, and assumptions
concerning the superiority of Soviet science. Some were ignorant, some
were opportunists, some complied and others bided their time. The
Lysenko era in Poland lasted from 1949 until 1956. This study is based
upon original archival research, interviews, memoirs, newspapers,
popular periodicals and scientific journals. I have sought to portray
not only how Lysenkoism was experienced by scientists and academics, but
also as a feature of everyday life in Socialist Poland. Michurinism was
not simply a scientific doctrine; it was a framework for understanding
prescribed attitudes towards competition, cooperation, the relationship
between the individual, society and the natural world, and the
superiority of socialism. As such it was a fundamental feature of
Poland's immediate post-war history.
