Zhdanov Letter to the Central Committee
Iurii Zhdanov, To Comrade Stalin. July 10, 1948
In this letter, Iurii Zhdanov publicly recanted his earlier support for Mendelian genetics and recast a scientific dispute as a political failure requiring Party self-criticism, addressed straight to Stalin and the Central Committee. Its appearance at the height of the Lysenko campaign helped set the tone for the rapid, public capitulations that followed. Because the author was Andrei Zhdanov’s son, the forced confession also read as a signal of Zhdanov’s political eclipse, and it foreshadowed his sudden death soon afterward.
Original Source: Pravda, 7 August 1948.
Appearing at a seminar of lecturers with a paper on the debatable questions of modern Darwinism, I undoubtedly committed a whole series of grave mistakes.
The very presentation of this paper was a mistake. I clearly underestimated my new position as a worker within the apparatus of the Central Committee, underestimated my responsibility, and failed to take into consideration that my appearance will be thought of as an official point of view of the Central Committee. Here was expressed that "university habit," when I made known my viewpoints in any scientific controversy without meditation. Therefore, when I was invited to give a paper at a seminar of lecturers, I decided to express my deliberations there with the reservation that this is "a personal point of view," so that my appearance would not obligate anyone to anything. There is no doubt that this was "professorial" in its poor judgment and not the Party position.
The fundamental error in the report itself was its bearing on a reconciliation of conflicting ideas in biology.
Representatives of formal genetics began to appear from the very first day of my work in the department of science with complaints that new varieties of useful plants (buckwheat, kok-saghyz, geranium, hemp, citrus fruit) produced by them and possessing improved qualities are not being introduced into production and are meeting opposition from the followers of Academician Lysenko. These undoubtedly useful forms of plants were produced by means of the immediate influence of chemical and physical factors on the germ cell (the seed). The Michurin doctrine does not deny the possibility and expediency of such an influence, acknowledging the presence of many other more important ways of altering an organism. Formal geneticists consider their own methods (strong stimulus of an organism with X-rays, ultraviolet rays, colchicine, acenaphthene) the only ones possible. I myself account for it that the mechanism of influence in these agents can and must be explained not by formal but by Michurin genetics.
My error lay in that, having decided to defend these practical results which appeared "as gifts of the Danae," I failed to subject the fundamental methodological defects of Mendel-Morgan genetics to a merciless criticism. I realize that it is a utilitarian approach toward practical work, a "pursuit after a kopeck."
The conflict of ideas in biology frequently assumes abnormal forms of squabbles and scandals. However, it seemed to me that in general there was nothing here apart from these squabbles and scandals. Consequently, I failed to appraise the principal aspect of the problem, approached the controversy non-historically, and failed to analyze its deep roots and causes.
All this taken collectively produced a tendency "to reconcile" the disputing sides, to erase discords, to emphasize that which unites and not that which separates the opponents. But in science, as in politics, principles do not reconcile themselves but conquer; the conflict does not proceed along a path of concealing, but of exposing contradictions. The attempt to reconcile principles on a basis of practicality and narrow pragmatism, and lack of appreciation of the theoretical aspect of the controversy led to eclectics, to which I confess.
- My sharp and public criticism of Academician Lysenko was an error. Academician Lysenko is now the recognized leader of the Michurin influence in biology; he defended Michurin and his doctrine from the attacks of bourgeois geneticists; he personally contributed much to science and practice in our economy. Taking all this into consideration, a criticism of Lysenko, of his individual deficiencies, ought to be conducted so that it would not weaken but strengthen the positions of the Michurinists.
I do not agree with some of the theoretical attitudes of Academician Lysenko (denial of intra-species struggle and mutual aid, underestimation of the internal specificity of an organism) ; I think that as yet he has made poor use of the treasure depository of Michurin teachings (to wit, that is why Lysenko has not brought forth any important varieties of agricultural plants); I think that his guidance of our agricultural science is weak. The V. I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Science, which he heads, is working far from its full power. No works at all are being performed in it on animal-breeding or on the economics and organization of agriculture, and the work in agricultural chemistry is poor. However, all these deficiencies should not have been criticized as I did in my report. As a result of my criticism of Lysenko the formal geneticists became "third rejoicers."
I, who am dedicated with all my heart and soul to Michurin's teaching, criticized Lysenko not because he is a Michurinist but because he is developing Michurinist principles insufficiently. Thus, objectively, the Michurinists lost while the Mendelians-Morganists won from such criticism.
- Lenin frequently said that a recognition of the necessity of any phenomenon conceals within itself the risk of falling into objectivism. To a definite extent, I likewise did not escape this danger.
I characterized the place of Weismannism and Mendelism-Morganism (I do not distinguish between them) to a considerable extent according to Pimen: both good and evil noticing with indifference. Instead of a sharp turn against these antiscientific views (expressed among us by Schmalhausen and his school), which in theory appears as a behind-the-veil form of popishness, of theological representations of the origin of species in consequence of separate acts of creation, but in practice lead toward "finality" and to a denial of the ability of man to alter the nature of animals and plants, by mistake I set before myself the task "to realize" their place in the development of biological theory and to find "the rational seed" in them. As a result my criticism of Weismannism was weak and objectivist, and essentially-- shallow.
As a result, again the main blow came to Academician Lysenko, that is by ricochet on the Michurin course.
Such are my mistakes as I understand them.
I consider it my duty to assure you, Comrade Stalin, and through your person the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), that I have been and remain an ardent Michurinist. My mistakes result from my insufficient discrimination of the history of the problem and that I built an incorrect front of struggle for the Michurin doctrine. All of this was due to inexperience and immaturity. I will correct my mistakes with deeds.
July 10, 1948 Iurii ZHDANOV.
Source: Conway Zirkle, ed., Death of a Science in Russia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949), pp. 267-270.