Lysenko in Yugoslavia, 1945-1950s: How to De-Stalinize Stalinist Science

By the summer of 1948, socialist Yugoslavia seemed determined to follow in the footsteps of its closest ally, the Soviet Union, and strike a decisive blow to "reactionary genetics." But barely a month before the infamous VASKhNIL session, the Soviet-Yugoslav split began to unravel, influencing the reception of Lysenko's doctrine in Yugoslavia. Instead of simply dismissing it as yet another example of Stalinist deviationism, Yugoslav mičurinci carefully weighed its political and ideological implications, trying to negotiate the Stalinist origins of Michurinist biology with political and ideological reconfigurations in post-Stalinist Yugoslavia. The essay examines the strategies employed by supporters and opponents of Lysenko's doctrine, as well as those sympathetic to it but yet unconvinced of its scientific validity and political appropriateness. It emphasizes globally unique attempts to de-Stalinize Michurinist biology and use it in the political-ideological struggle against the Stalinist Soviet Union, pointing to local agency and the bottom-up nature of attempts both in support of and against the doctrine.