In Pursuit of the Gene

TRIUMPH OF THE MODERN GENE © 263
On November 14, 1936, the Politburo resolved to cancel the International
Genetics Congress that had been scheduled to take place the following
year in Moscow. At that meeting, Yakovlev, the head of Agriculture,
proposed that the Communist Party take control of the proceedings and
delay the conference until August 1938. 67 “Meanwhile it is said that the internal
front must be cleaned,” Muller explained in a letter to David from
Moscow. Agol had been court-martialed and Levit “demoted and disgraced
(for a beginning).” 68 On December 14, 1936, the New York Times ran an article
that shocked the world with the announcement that the 1937 International
Congress for Genetics had been delayed and that Vavilov and Agol had
been arrested. A few days later, the Times retracted the story about Vavilov,
but Pravda confirmed that Agol had been arrested. 69 On December 21, Levit
and his Medico-Genetics Institute were attacked in the press. On December
22, Vavilov denied the rumors of his arrest to the Times 70 and further moved
to reassure his Western supporters by reporting that he would be giving an
address that evening at a meeting currently being held at the Lenin All-
Union Academy of Agriculture Sciences. Lysenko, Serebrovsky, and Muller
were scheduled to speak the next day.
Sensing that the fate of genetics in the Soviet Union hung in the balance,
over 3,000 people—the largest crowd of the conference—gathered to
hear Vavilov’s lecture on the third evening of the meeting. Vavilov began
by defending the accomplishments of the Lenin Academy under his leadership
and gave an entirely objective critique of Lysenko’s new program of
“intra-varietal crossing,” 71 which had become Lysenko’s new focus after it
had become clear that vernalization was not increasing yields and in many
cases actually lowered them. 72 While Vavilov defended the practice of ordinary
intervarietal crossing, which was standard practice in America and elsewhere,
he did not dismiss Lysenko’s embrace of intravarietal breeding out
of hand, instead dwelling on special cases in which intravarietal crossing
might result in improvement of strains. 73 But it is impossible to know if
Vavilov still believed Lysenko might be susceptible to persuasion and was
hoping to win him over by rational discourse or whether he was holding
back because he was an astute politician himself and knew just how far he
might be allowed to go in his criticism of science that he knew to be en-