Comrade Haldane Is Too Busy to Go on Holiday

by Gavan Tredoux

  In December 1936, criticism of Lysenko’s “theories” and violent counterattacks on genetics burst out at a special VASKhNIL conference. Leading geneticists, including Hermann Muller, pointed out that Lysenko had no experimental data, and that controlled data quietly collected by others positively disproved his claims about transmutation of varieties. Lysenko and Prezent were cordially invited to inspect slides of chromosomes that had been assembled for their benefit. They gave the slides a cursory look but were not impressed. The losers by this were their critics. Within the next four years, more than eighteen of Vavilov’s senior men would fall. At the same time, geneticists and agronomists who were not publically involved in the Lysenko controversy were rounded up, too. The 7th International Congress of Genetics, due to have been held in Moscow in 1937, was suddenly “postponed” after years of preparation—in reality, it had to be moved to Edinburgh and was only held in 1939. Solomon Levit and Israel Agol were among those accused of being “Menshevizing idealists,” “Nazis,” and “Trotskyites,” guilty of “racist falsification of biology.”35 Then Agol was arrested by the NKVD on December 8, 1936.

  News of these arrests, the “postponement,” and general persecution quickly reached the West and the press. It was feared that Vavilov himself might have been a victim. This part was premature. Vavilov was instructed to publically deny the rumors, which he did in a telegram to the New York Times.36 Shrewdly, none other than J. B. S. Haldane himself was chosen as the addressee of an additional “open letter” to Western scientists in 1937, assuring them all was well. Vavilov was among the signatories. The letter included the ringing assurance that “In the USSR scientists have the right to make public their scientific views completely freely, and arrests on the basis of scientific opinions are completely impossible and contradict the whole spirit of the Soviet Socialist Constitution.”37 But the arrest of Agol as a “wrecker” had long been confirmed.

  It is hard to say whether Haldane really took these assurances at face value; he certainly acted in public as though he did. After Vavilov was openly attacked by Lysenko and Prezent in the Soviet press, concern grew again. Haldane then wrote a letter to Nature that demonstrated the kind of arguments he would deploy in the future whenever these questions were raised.38 They rely on a shift we will call equivalence-by-naming, whereby things are set equal merely by classifying them under the same general term, in this case “criticism.”

  The attacks of Lysenko on Vavilov and other Russian geneticists reported in Nature of August 21 are not wholly dissimilar to Dr. H. Dingle’s attack on Prof. E. A. Milne in a recent issue of this journal. Vavilov was accused of being anti-Darwinian, Milne of going back to Aristotle, in neither case perhaps with full justification. If these attacks have led to a curtailment of Vavilov’s work, the situation of genetics in the Soviet Union is indeed serious. If not, hard words break no bones, and the outlook for genetics in Moscow is at any rate no worse than in London, where I understand that the only department of genetics in the University is shortly to come to an end.

  Haldane blithely ignored the arrest of Agol, who had disappeared into the meat grinder. Half a century later it was revealed that Agol was shot on March 8, 1937. We will return to Haldane’s treatment of his case later. As it happened, Haldane had undisclosed private information about Vavilov and the general situation in the Soviet Union, personally conveyed to him by Hermann Muller. Charlotte Haldane later recalled,

  Professor Muller left the Soviet Union in 1937,39 and, it may have been in that year or around that time, that he visited us in London. He expressed acute disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the changing scientific line in the Soviet Union, and described to us, although with a certain degree of reticence, the peculiar developments in Soviet genetics; the gradual unfolding of the Party attack on Vavilov, and the rise to power in genetical circles of one, I Present. I do not now recollect whether at that time he mentioned the name of Lysenko.40

  Muller had thought better of his earlier resolution (quoted in chapter 3) not to disabuse Haldane. He may have been prompted by Vavilov’s personal request to transmit a message to another Soviet geneticist, Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky, then in Berlin, that he would be in danger if he returned—Timofeev-Ressovsky took the advice.41

  Koltsov had taken a public stance against Lysenko all along and was under fierce attack from 1937 onward. At an unusual meeting of VASKhNIL that year, he was accused of “fascist, racist conceptions” contrary to the “social-class line” of the country.42 His work in the eugenics movement of the 1920s was repeatedly raised against him. He was, apparently, a “fascist” before fascism existed. Always defiant, he refused to back down and dismissed the charges. But they were repeated in the state-controlled newspapers, a sure signal from above.

  In July 1937, Levit was removed for good as director of his institute, which was shuttered in September. On January 10, 1938, he was arrested by the NKVD. On May 17, he was convicted of the usual espionage charges. On May 29, he was shot. That year Lysenko was appointed president of VASKhNIL. His accession had been simplified by the expedient of shooting several competitors the previous year, including Aleksandr Bondarenko, D. S. Margolin, and A. I. Muralov. His immediate predecessor, G. K. Meister, was also arrested and shot as an “enemy of the people.” Throughout the rest of 1938 and 1939, attacks on Vavilov in the official organs were amplified. The NKVD had already placed a number of informers in his institute by the early 1930s. Minor trade union members and graduate students were now used to intimidate and humiliate him. Vavilov’s theories were considered bourgeois and harmful, while Lysenko had it right. Denunciations poured in. Lysenko demanded that research at Vavilov’s institute be reorganized to serve the country and packed it with his own appointees.

  In early 1939, Koltsov, along with Lev Berg, was nominated to the prestigious Academy of Sciences. A letter protesting his nomination soon appeared in Pravda. One of the authors was none other than Professor A. N. Bach from the Institute for Biochemistry, familiar to us from Haldane’s 1928 visit. The letter denounced Koltsov as a “pseudo-scientist” who did not belong in the academy. Bach was an Old Bolshevik and was on the Central Committee of the Party, so the situation was now grave. He was quickly appointed head of a commission to investigate Koltsov’s institute. Koltsov again dismissed complaints about his ideological deviations with contempt, but was removed as director. Dependably, Prezent renewed attacks in the press. By December 1940, Koltsov was dead, supposedly of a heart attack. His wife committed suicide the same day. A Russian biochemist has since revealed, as many long suspected, that Koltsov was poisoned by the NKVD.43

  Vavilov, too, was under a barrage in 1939, after fighting back against Lysenko in the press with a spirited defense of genetics. Lysenko, describing “Mendelist” genetics as nothing more than metaphysics, was not impressed. VASKhNIL stepped into the fray, subjecting Vavilov to a cross-examination when he submitted the (usually routine) report from his institute. They were not satisfied that he was properly Marxist in his approach. In his defense, Vavilov invoked . . . J. B. S. Haldane!

  Lukyanenko: Couldn’t you learn from Marx? Maybe you hurried through his works, satisfied yourself with broad generalities, but ‘a word is not a sparrow on the wing’.

  Vavilov: A book by Haldane came out recently. He is a very interesting figure, a member of the British Communist Party, a prominent geneticist, biochemist, and philosopher. This Haldane has written an interesting book entitled Marxism and Science, in which he tried . . .

  Lukyanenko: He was criticized.

  Vavilov: The bourgeois press criticized him, of course, but he is so talented that he was admired even while being criticized. He showed that the dialectic has to be used skillfully. He says Marxism is applicable in the study of evolution, in history, wherever many sciences intersect; when we deal with complex matters, Marxism can be prescient, as when Engels foresaw by fifty years many of today’s discoveries. I must say that I am a great devotee of Marxist literature, not only ours, but forei
gn as well. There, too, attempts are being made at applying Marxism.

  Lukyanenko: Marxism is the only science. Darwinism is, after all, only a part; Marx, Engels, and Lenin gave us the real theory of cognition. And so when I hear Darwinism mentioned without Marxism, it may seem correct, on the one hand, but it turns out to be quite otherwise.

  Vavilov: I studied Marx four or five times, and I am prepared to go on studying him. Let me conclude by saying that the staff of the institute consists basically of highly qualified specialists, productive workers; and we ask the academy and you, Comrade Lukyanenko, to help our collective create conditions for good work. As for these tiresome labels, we ought to get rid of them.44

  Haldane’s Marxist biology wasn’t good enough for VASKhNIL. In a strange conjunction of events, that same year Haldane solicited an article from Vavilov for the new Marxist journal that JBS had helped to start, The Modern Quarterly. Vavilov promised a long scientific paper on the “Origins of Cultivated Plants,” but confessed that he was “not much of a Marxist,” hastily adding that he did find it “useful” and had enjoyed Haldane’s books on the subject.45 Marxism-as-a-hobby versus Marxism-whether-you-like-it-or-not. Vavilov was never able to send the article. The NKVD dossier was nearly complete.

  Many have debated whether the turn against genetics was a necessary consequence of Marxism.46 As there are numberless varieties of Marxism, it is not impossible to reconcile the two, but it must be difficult. The Bolsheviks fell for Lamarck early and often. Stalin, an amateur gardener, was known to be a Lamarckian himself. Khrushchev followed him, and so too did Brezhnev, to some extent.47 Internationally the same pattern emerged, and spread throughout left-wing thought, which remains hostile to genetic explanations outside of very limited spheres. Dissenters were few. Looked at from another angle, the question is beside the point. Marxism within the Communist Party and its international fronts meant exactly what Moscow said it meant. It could change overnight. As a signal of group membership, there are real advantages to requiring belief in an obviously false or absurd idea. Otherwise one might believe it merely because it is true.

  5. WAR ON ONE FRONT

  In 1938, Haldane published a book on air-raid precautions, titled simply A.R.P., issued by the Left Book Club. This must be the least-read of all Haldane’s books, even though it is aimed at a general audience. It repays close attention.

  Air-raid shelters had been a Haldane theme since at least 1935, and he applied his experiences in Spain, where up until early 1938 he had witnessed Nationalist bombing attacks on the Republican-held areas. Although the Republicans had their own bombers, supplied and flown by the Soviets, he never mentions them. Some of the material in A.R.P. addresses gas attacks and contains practical advice about shelters, but the book’s scope is far broader.

  Haldane argued that the proper precaution against air raids on Britain was to build an enormous system of underground tunnels, at least 1,000 miles of them beneath London alone, to a depth of 60 feet. Unemployed miners would be happy to dig them. He called this his “two year plan” to provide “total protection” against air raids—one assumes a five-year plan was too long. By his own estimate, the cost would have been 180 million pounds, fully one-third of the amount then being spent on all rearmament by Britain. The cost could be made up to some degree by scrapping bombers and building only fighters to resist raids. An international moratorium on building bombers could be negotiated with other powers, knowing that the country’s defenses were impenetrable. “It would no longer be possible to frighten the German people into supporting an extreme form of militarism by the threat of bombardment by French, Russian, or British aeroplanes.”1 Haldane had been making this argument at least since 1934. “If we had protection of this kind [air-raid shelters], we could afford to reduce our expenditure on ships and airplanes, and people in other countries would be less afraid of us.”2 As an added bonus, people could take shelter in the tunnels when their own government bombed them. For those who might be skeptical about the chances of the British government bombing its own citizens, he said that a man in his London club had proposed doing exactly that to get rid of socialists.

  Of the many possible objections to his plan, each of which Haldane tried to counter in turn, “bureaucracy” stands out. Specialists might attempt to resist his ambitious proposal by producing recommendations elaborately designed to frustrate it, choking it with complex considerations (motivated by spite?). He claimed that he had once written a report during the First World War that was designed to do exactly that, and succeeded. “This form of activity is called wrecking (or rather the Russian word for wrecking) in the Soviet Union. Having done it myself here I am therefore the more willing to believe that others have done it there.”3

  Applying science to problems is therefore a double-edged sword. Too much science could get you shot, as in the case of the engineer Peter Palchinsky, who had the temerity to point out that the massive hydroelectric scheme in the Dnieper River basin would not necessarily pay off, due to the sluggish and variable flow of the river—a Soviet hydrologist later confirmed this, calculating that simply burning the hay grown in the massive area that the dam flooded would have generated more energy.4 An unnecessary complexity! For those disinclined to believe that Haldane would go that far, consider his thoughts on those building owners who might deny the public access to their basements. “I can imagine very well what would happen in Madrid if the owner of a good cellar refused to allow its use as a public shelter. It would be suggested to him that the lamp-posts had not been in use since 1936, and that in spite of the shortage of rope he would constitute a suitable decoration for one. This would of course be another Red Atrocity. Actually no such case has arisen. A certain degree of public spirit is taken for granted in Madrid.”5

  Haldane stuck to this ARP theme for years, taking every opportunity to embarrass authorities at public meetings around the country, by arguing that the aboveground “Anderson” shelters they provided were inadequate compared to his own deeply buried “Haldane” shelter design. His arguments were usually spiced up with assurances that the capitalist government didn’t care about the poor anyway. He very narrowly avoided a libel suit after claiming that the cement manufacturers were profiteering on the construction of shelters. He abandoned the campaign only after the Soviet Union was attacked by Hitler in 1941, and sullenly retreated to the position that above-ground shelters would have to do after all.

  There is not much relevant science on offer in A.R.P. to support Haldane’s “better defence by burrowing” theories. He had to argue that air raids were serious enough to shelter from, but not so serious that feasibly built tunnels would not be good enough. He could offer only his personal conclusions based on the bombing in Spain that he had seen, though he had no real data beyond his own authority, and nothing that could be critically examined. Later in 1938, when he was not there, Nationalist bombing became more effective, and he was forced to add an appendix to his book to try to counter that development. Maginot-like tunnels represented a vast fixed investment, an all-or-nothing bet against offensive weapons and tactics. Haldane’s expertise in biochemistry, gas defenses, and other bits and pieces of mathematical modeling did not in the end convey all that much about global military strategy.

  But it is not a given that Haldane took his own arguments seriously. Douglas Hyde, who was then a member of the Communist Party, recalled after his defection that the ARP campaign offered many useful opportunities to the Party, which was publically against “imperialist wars” only until the USSR was attacked. “The shelter campaign had everything to it from our point of view, since it had the appearance of being a crusade for greater safety for the common people, whilst at the same time it spread alarm about the provisions already made by the authorities. Moreover, it gave us an opportunity to use many of our crypto-communists on public activity. It was led by our scientist-members, among whom was Dr. Nunn May, later imprisoned for passing on atomic secrets to the U.S.S.R.”6

  On Aug
ust 23, 1939, Foreign Ministers Von Ribbentrop and Molotov signed a ten-year non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR, publically reversing the previously advertised undying enmity between the two countries. The public terms stipulated that neither party would attack the other or join up with those hostile to it, and would lead to economic trade and scientific cooperation between the two parties. A secret protocol to the Nazi-Soviet Pact arranged for the division of Poland between Germany and Russia, and was later modified, in part implicitly, to cede the Baltic States to the USSR along with Bessarabia in eastern Romania. Just over a week after the Pact was signed, Germany invaded Poland from the west to claim its portion. Two weeks later, so as not to appear too hasty, the Soviets invaded from the east to claim theirs.7

  In later years, it would become convenient for some to explain away the Nazi-Soviet Pact as just a device used by Stalin to buy more time, in the knowledge that a German invasion of the USSR was looming. The evidence shows otherwise. It was Stalin’s hope that Germany would become embroiled in a long fight to the death with Britain and France, while the USSR watched from the sidelines. The Pact secured Hitler’s eastern front when he turned to invade Belgium and France, and thus allowed the Second World War to be launched. The Pact also ensured that the USSR shared some of the resulting spoils. Hitler’s successes and the quick course of the war in Western Europe surprised Stalin as much as everyone else, showing that he had miscalculated badly. During the twenty months that the Pact arrangement lasted, the Soviets shipped critical raw materials to the Germans, including much-needed oil, and cooperated with them on a number of other levels—for instance, by sending them German communists, who had been sheltering in the USSR, to deal with. Anti-German books and films were removed from circulation.8 Within Germany itself, the Pact also led to a dramatic decline of Communist Party activities. There is no reason to believe that Stalin was expecting an imminent invasion of the USSR by the Germans. When that did come, he was not prepared for it, mentally or militarily.