[VadeRetro]

Lysenkoism had/has a certain intellectual appeal to the Stalinists and the Left in general. The left believes in Nature over Nurture and bridles at the implied limitations of genetic determinism. Soviet doctrine decreed that a new breed of man, the "Soviet Man," was coming as a result of the efforts of the state plus the plasticity of humanity.

[VadeRetro]

The left believes in Nature over Nurture and bridles at the implied limitations of genetic determinism.

Exactly backwards. Nurture over Nature.

Can't write a paragraph without some kind of screwup anymore. :(

[furball4paws]

"Lysenkoism had/has a certain intellectual appeal to the Stalinists and the Left in general"

This seems to implies that Lysenko came to his "theory" without reference to Stalinist Russia and the Soviet System and that the Soviet System snatched it. Lysenko was quite "cold". He purposely devised a system that was "anti-West" (and also "anti-Science") to get the lever he needed to get control of the "crop science" part of the Soviet agricultural system (and all systems in the USSR were political, by definition). After reading his book, I don't think he believed it himself, it was just the right tool at the right time for his own aggrandizement.