The Lysenkoists’ “Historiosophy”

The so-called “Michurinist” biology (also known as Lysenkoism), which flourished in the USSR in the 1930s–1960s, represented a radical theoretical break with prevailing concepts in genetics and evolutionary theory. One of the ways this “revolution” was legitimized and a distinct scientific identity was forged by the “Michurinists” was through their particular interpretation of the history of biology, which they reshaped to align with their own views on the development of life sciences. The historical narrative constructed by T.D. Lysenko’s followers was based on the idea of staged development in biological science and its inevitable progression toward higher forms – with “Michurinist” biology itself positioned as the pinnacle of this scientific progress. This view, however, was complicated by a dualistic perception of biology’s past and present, which Lysenkoists framed as a perpetual struggle between two opposing “lines”: a progressive one (materialist, the only truly scientific approach) and a reactionary one (idealist, metaphysical, and anti-scientific). The infamous August 1948 session of the USSR Academy of Agricultural Sciences was portrayed as the beginning of a new, culminating stage in the history of biology, while “Michurinist” biology was declared the Soviet version of Darwinism – aligned with the historical materialist thesis that a society's intellectual life is determined by its dominant mode of production within a given historical “formation”. Yet, while the “Michurinist” understanding of history was deeply influenced by Marxist philosophy, their historical narratives also revived certain mythologems traceable to medieval thought and embedded in Russian historiosophical tradition. Thus, despite its claims to scientific materialism, Lysenkoism inadvertently reintroduced quasi-mythical elements into its vision of scientific progress.