Education Quote by Trofim Lysenko

Lysenko frames Darwinism less as a scientific theory than as an ideological irritant, and that’s the point: he’s writing a permission slip for the state to treat biology as a branch of political hygiene. The phrase “as presented by Darwin” is a subtle narrowing move. It suggests the problem isn’t evolution per se, but Darwin’s “presentation” - a convenient way to delegitimize inconvenient evidence while claiming to salvage a purified, corrected version that better serves the moment.

The real action is in “contradicted idealistic philosophy.” In Soviet usage, “idealism” was a loaded charge, shorthand for bourgeois metaphysics, religious residue, and any worldview not disciplined by officially sanctioned materialism. Lysenko twists the screw by adding that the “contradiction grew deeper” as Darwinism developed its “materialist teaching.” That reads like a paradox until you recognize the propaganda logic: Darwinism is guilty no matter what. If it’s “idealistic,” it’s politically suspect; if it’s “materialist,” it competes with Marxism-Leninism for explanatory authority and threatens the party’s monopoly on what counts as reality.

Context does the heavy lifting. Lysenko rose to prominence by promising a more malleable nature - traits shaped by environment and training, not hard inheritance - a biological mirror of socialist self-making. Casting Darwinism (and, by extension, Mendelian genetics) as philosophically contaminated helped justify purges of scientists and the substitution of slogans for experiments. The sentence performs that substitution: it doesn’t argue; it indicts. It’s science talk repurposed as a loyalty test.