Decades before genetic engineering raised the possibility of rapid generational changes in species, Lysenko’s simplistic ideas catered to Stalin’s obsessive belief that Soviet agriculture could be made to leap forward (or even that Communist Man might emerge) under the proper environmental controls.

Lysenko spent futile years trying to improve strains of wheat by refrigerating seeds over the winter, which he called “vernalization,” and using other techniques of seed preparation, planting and fertilization. By concealing his failures, suppressing academic rivals and pandering to Stalin, Lysenko survived for decades, although his influence began to wane in the 1950s.

‘Scientific Bankruptcy’

Dr. Medvedev, an agrochemist at a Moscow university, believed, as did many of his fellow scientists and intellectuals, that Soviet agriculture had lagged far behind much of the world and that its science had been smothered in political ideology under Lysenko’s influence, which continued after Stalin’s death in 1953 and throughout Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev’s 11 years in the Kremlin.

In 1961, Dr. Medvedev began writing a history of Soviet science that accused Lysenko of “demagoguery and intimidation” and of fomenting “scientific bankruptcy” in the Soviet Union. Although unpublished in his country, the history circulated among underground sources. In 1963, he joined Dr. Sakharov, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, and other scientists in openly attacking Lysenko’s doctrines.

After Khrushchev’s fall from power in 1964, the floodgates of criticism of Lysenko were opened, and by 1965, when Lysenko was removed from his post at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the Kremlin quietly abandoned his agricultural notions in favor of more modern scientific techniques. Still, criticism of Soviet ideas was not tolerated by the government, which rigorously suppressed books, articles and speech.

In 1969, Dr. Medvedev’s book “The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko,” was published by the Columbia University Press to wide acclaim and international attention. By then, he had published more than 100 scientific papers on the biosynthesis of proteins, heredity and the aging process, and had become a prolific contributor to the underground literature of protest. He had also acquired a growing reputation abroad.