The Lysenkoist agronomist who led Soviet agricultural science administration
In a 1964 letter to Khrushchev defending Lysenko: "He is an honest man and a great scientist. Comrade Lysenko must be protected from these torrents of filthy slander."
A Soviet agronomist and plant breeder who won two Stalin Prizes for cotton-variety research before rising to the top of Soviet agricultural science administration. After a decade as vice-president of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL), he was appointed agriculture minister by Khrushchev at the end of 1960 but was replaced amid the 1962 agricultural crisis, returning instead as president of VASKhNIL. One of Trofim Lysenko's most loyal institutional allies, he wrote directly to Khrushchev in 1964 defending Lysenko as a 'great scientist' against the public criticisms of Andrei Sakharov and Zhores Medvedev.
Career Timeline
- 1928–1941Technician → head of cotton dept. → acting director, All-Union Breeding and Genetics Institute (VSGI), Odessa
- 1941–1945Director, Rozhdestvensky Agricultural Technicum → director, Kuibyshev Agricultural Institute
- 1945–1951Deputy director for science, VSGI, Odessa
- 1951–1960Vice-president, VASKhNIL
- 1960–1962Minister of Agriculture of the USSR
- 1962–1964President, VASKhNIL