ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Lysenko’s rhetoric at the 1936 VASKhNIL (the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences) Congress. First, this chapter discusses the context of this congress and argues that Lysenko and his followers created a rhetorical environment that required a formal discussion of the question of whether Lysenkoism was reconcilable with classical genetics. Second, this chapter reviews commentary on the 1936 VASKhNIL Congress to show that before this congress, the Soviet biological community had not worked out a definite attitude toward Lysenkoism. Rather, there was a range of varying attitudes to Lysenkoism. I argue that Lysenko’s goal at the congress was precisely to establish two distinct irreconcilable camps, respectively supporting and opposing his doctrine. Third, this chapter reviews Lysenko’s actions before the congress to suggest that he had been consciously escalating a conflict with classical geneticists. Finally, I begin scrutinizing the constitutional rhetoric in the text of Lysenko’s speech “Two Trends in Genetics,” delivered at the 1936 VASKhNIL Congress, and in the script of his replies to criticism following this speech. I argue that Lysenko’s speech and answers to criticism constitute his doctrine as irreconcilable with classical genetics. I also show how Lysenko places his science, Michurinist agrobiology, and classical genetics in historical context.
