IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001250830

Michurinist Biology in the People's Republic of China, 1948--1956 (2012)

Schneider, Laurence A. (Author)

Journal of the History of Biology
Volume: 45, no. 3
Issue: 3
Pages: 525-556

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Science and government Transmission of ideas Genetics Science and ideology 20th century, late Soviet Union China Mendel, Gregor Johann Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich Morgan, Thomas Hunt

Michurinist biology was introduced to China in 1948; granted a state supported monopoly in 1952; and reduced to parity with western genetics from 1956. The Soviets exported it through the propaganda agencies Sino Soviet Friendship Association (SSFA) and VOKS (Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries). China's Ministry of Agriculture achieved broad public awareness and acceptance of Michurinist biology through a translation, publication, and Soviet guest speakers campaign -- all managed by a team of agriculturalists led by Luo Tianyu, a veteran CCP (Communist Party) cadre. The campaign grew exponentially, but did not affect university or Chinese Academy of Sciences biology. Luo Tianyu's failed attempt to force Michurinist biology on a Beijing university triggered its second stage: monopoly status and a ban on Mendelist-Morganist biology in teaching, research, and publication. The CCP Central Committee supported this policy believing that Michurinst biology would increase agricultural production for the forthcoming first Five Year Plan; whereas, western genetics had no practical value. Michurinist biology flourished at all levels of education, research, and science literature; Western genetics was completely shut down. This only began to change when the CCP Central Committee became wary of China's dependency on Soviet technical expertise and failure to fully utilize that of China. Change was further promoted by significant attacks on Michurinist biology by Soviet and East German biologists. Soon, these developments informed China's genetics question, which became a test case for larger questions about the definition of science and the relationship between scientists and the state. Under the guidance of Lu Dingyi's Central Committee Propaganda Department, the CCP eventually decided that, henceforth, science controversies would only be resolved by the science community; and that monopolies or ideological orthodoxies would not be imposed on science. At the same time, the CCP rescinded Michurinist biology's monopoly and the ban on western genetics. By the mid-1960s western genetics had successfully restored itself, largely due to the leadership of C. C. Tan, a former student of Dobzhansky. Michurinist biology's presence shrank and it became marginalized.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001250830/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article deJong-Lambert, William; Krementsov, Nikolai; (2012)
On Labels and Issues: The Lysenko Controversy and the Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB001250824/)

Article Vedran Duančić; (2020)
Lysenko in Yugoslavia, 1945–1950s: How to De-Stalinize Stalinist Science (/isis/citation/CBB524254444/)

Article Wolfe, Audra J.; (2012)
The Cold War Context of the Golden Jubilee, Or, Why We Think of Mendel as the Father of Genetics (/isis/citation/CBB001250825/)

Article Francis Newman; (2021)
Scientific ideologies on the move: Sino-British exchanges, scientific freedoms and the governance of science in Britain, 1961–1966 (/isis/citation/CBB098388047/)

Book Oreskes, Naomi; Krige, John; (2014)
Science and Technology in the Global Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB001551121/)

Article Wolfe, Audra J.; (2010)
What Does It Mean to Go Public? The American Response to Lysenkoism, Reconsidered (/isis/citation/CBB001022644/)

Article Roll-Hansen, Nils; (2008)
Wishful Science: The Persistence of T. D. Lysenko's Agrobiology in the Politics of Science (/isis/citation/CBB000850336/)

Article McCannon, John; (2010)
Winged Prometheans: Arctic Aviation as Socialist Construction in Stalinist Russia, 1928--1939 (/isis/citation/CBB001211530/)

Article Solovey, Mark; (2001)
Science in the Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB000100607/)

Article Kragh, Helge; (2013)
Science and Ideology: The Case of Cosmology in the Soviet Union, 1947--1963 (/isis/citation/CBB001451589/)

Book Dudley, Leonard; (2012)
Mothers of Innovation: How Expanding Social Networks Gave Birth to the Industrial Revolution (/isis/citation/CBB001201315/)

Article Li, Zhenzhen; (2002)
Dilemma about Defining “the Relationship between Theory and Practice”: The Conflict between Political and Developmental Directions (/isis/citation/CBB000340024/)

Article Aurika Ričkienė; (2017)
Botanists in Lithuania during the Michurinist Campaign (/isis/citation/CBB240438002/)

Article Tanghe, Koen B.; (2015)
Mendel at the Sesquicentennial of “Versuche uber Pflanzen-Hybriden” (1865): the Root of the Biggest Legend in the History of Science (/isis/citation/CBB001553554/)

Article Czernecki, Igor; (2013)
An Intellectual Offensive: The Ford Foundation and the Destalinization of the Polish Social Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB001213829/)

Article Hiroshi Ichikawa; (2019)
Materialist Perestroika of Quantum Dynamics and Soviet Ideology: Yakov Petrovich Terletskii (1912‒1993) (/isis/citation/CBB251482593/)

Chapter Shukaitis, Stevphen; (2009)
Space Is the (Non)Place: Martians, Marxists, and the Outer Space of the Radical Imagination (/isis/citation/CBB001032634/)

Article Blanc, Marcel; (1985)
Darwin, Mendel, Morgan: The beginnings of genetics (/isis/citation/CBB000050263/)

Article Aronova, Elena; (2012)
The Congress for Cultural Freedom, Minerva, and the Quest for Instituting “Science Studies” in the Age of Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB001211962/)

Article Elzinga, Aant; (2012)
The Rise and Demise of the International Council for Science Policy Studies (ICSPS) as a Cold War Bridging Organization (/isis/citation/CBB001211961/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}