204 Susanne Bauer
Early Soviet visions for radically different future humans were disrupted
through Stalin’s politics, from biology – mainly based on versions of genetics
linked to the increase of agricultural production following Lysenko’s ideas,
up to the complete ban on classic Mendelian genetics, which was featured as
bourgeois and to be replaced by creative Darwinism, the Soviet version of
genetics. 35 This was the exclusive policy for all biology institutes and departments at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, bringing classic genetics to a hold.
This had consequences well into the 1960s, even after Lysenko was dismissed
as head of the Institute of General Genetics. Nevertheless, there were a few
niches where scientists continued to do research in classic genetics – and these
were radiation biology and mutation research. This line of research dealt with
environmental effects of radioactive and toxic agents and was key to parts of
the research taking place in secret nuclear cities and military institutes. In
research centers related to the nuclear program, radiation biology, the study
of mutation induced by radiation exposure, was a key part of biophysics – yet,
importantly, institutionally within physics and not biology.
It was only during the late 1960s that researchers were able to reestablish fields such as medical genetics under the Academy of Medical Sciences.
The Institute of Medical Genetics had been founded in 1968, expanding
its research areas from radiation immunology and studies of hereditary disease, including field studies, into Central Asia. Interestingly, the Institute
of Medical Genetics’ departmental structure in the early years following its
establishment included radiation immunology and mutation studies. 36 This
was a way of drawing in the research into genetic and somatic effects that was
done during Soviet time, which under Lysenko could not take place in biology institutions, but only under the label radiation biology or mutations
research. It was at this Moscow-based institute, where researchers from the
Center for the Protection of the Health of Mother and Child completed
research stays and defended their PhDs in population genetics.
Scientific memory work through medical genetics has been contested,
especially given its entanglements with eugenics. Some of the metrics and
indices used in post-Lysenko population genetics indeed evoke categories
connected to a biopolitics of improvement of the biological “population
body.” 37 Indeed, Russia, like other European countries in the early-20th century, had developed their own socialist eugenics agendas. In the early Soviet
era, these were connected to the making of the “New Soviet Human,” a better version of humankind enabled by technoscientific means. The concept of
convergence (sblizhenie) and, ultimately, merging (slianie) were the envisioned
goals to be reached over time, if needed in different pathways. 38 The ethnic
groups and nationalities making up the population of the Soviet Union were
envisioned to merge into one socialist people, while they were assigned different pathways toward communism, corresponding with their cultures and
languages, which social scientists had classified into a new system of categories during the early Soviet years. Anthropologists and ethnographers had
played a key role in the first census and the use of the categories narodnost’,
Early Soviet visions for radically different future humans were disrupted
through Stalin’s politics, from biology – mainly based on versions of genetics
linked to the increase of agricultural production following Lysenko’s ideas,
up to the complete ban on classic Mendelian genetics, which was featured as
bourgeois and to be replaced by creative Darwinism, the Soviet version of
genetics. 35 This was the exclusive policy for all biology institutes and departments at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, bringing classic genetics to a hold.
This had consequences well into the 1960s, even after Lysenko was dismissed
as head of the Institute of General Genetics. Nevertheless, there were a few
niches where scientists continued to do research in classic genetics – and these
were radiation biology and mutation research. This line of research dealt with
environmental effects of radioactive and toxic agents and was key to parts of
the research taking place in secret nuclear cities and military institutes. In
research centers related to the nuclear program, radiation biology, the study
of mutation induced by radiation exposure, was a key part of biophysics – yet,
importantly, institutionally within physics and not biology.
It was only during the late 1960s that researchers were able to reestablish fields such as medical genetics under the Academy of Medical Sciences.
The Institute of Medical Genetics had been founded in 1968, expanding
its research areas from radiation immunology and studies of hereditary disease, including field studies, into Central Asia. Interestingly, the Institute
of Medical Genetics’ departmental structure in the early years following its
establishment included radiation immunology and mutation studies. 36 This
was a way of drawing in the research into genetic and somatic effects that was
done during Soviet time, which under Lysenko could not take place in biology institutions, but only under the label radiation biology or mutations
research. It was at this Moscow-based institute, where researchers from the
Center for the Protection of the Health of Mother and Child completed
research stays and defended their PhDs in population genetics.
Scientific memory work through medical genetics has been contested,
especially given its entanglements with eugenics. Some of the metrics and
indices used in post-Lysenko population genetics indeed evoke categories
connected to a biopolitics of improvement of the biological “population
body.” 37 Indeed, Russia, like other European countries in the early-20th century, had developed their own socialist eugenics agendas. In the early Soviet
era, these were connected to the making of the “New Soviet Human,” a better version of humankind enabled by technoscientific means. The concept of
convergence (sblizhenie) and, ultimately, merging (slianie) were the envisioned
goals to be reached over time, if needed in different pathways. 38 The ethnic
groups and nationalities making up the population of the Soviet Union were
envisioned to merge into one socialist people, while they were assigned different pathways toward communism, corresponding with their cultures and
languages, which social scientists had classified into a new system of categories during the early Soviet years. Anthropologists and ethnographers had
played a key role in the first census and the use of the categories narodnost’,