The Lysenko Case
Russia Puts the Clock Back. By John Langdon-Davies. (Gollancz. 7s. 6d.) THE Lysenko controversy, which is the subject of this interesting book, has already become a cause célèbre as intricate as the Dreyfus case half a century ago ; and since Mr. Langdon-Davies sees in it. probably rightly, symptoms no less important than the first stirrings of the Reformation, his book cannot be expected to say the last word on the subject. The drama is still in progress. While this book was in the press, for instance, Lysenko's brother took refuge in the U.SA., where he was acclaimed as an outstanding expert in his branch of technology with an enthusiasm which contrasts oddly with the orthodox Western view that Lysenko himself is "a scienti- fically illiterate peasant." Nevertheless, Russia Puts the Clock Back was badly needed as an interim statement of the case against
Lysenko's supporters (especially Professor Haldane); and from the eminence of the names associated with its publication (including Sir Henry Dale) it may be assumed to be authoritative.
It is a pity, then, that it is so fiercely polemical in tope, descending thereby to the level of its Soviet antagonists ; and also that it does not attempt to answer what seems to the layitan to be the crucial question: why, if Lysenko is a fraud and his theories do not work in practice, has he been entrusted by an exceedingly practical govern- ment with the exceedingly practical task of directing a great agri- cultural programme ? There must be an answer, but it has yet to be clearly stated. Perhaps Mr. Langdorr-Davies maygive it in a later edition. Meanwhile the layman must be grateful for an excel- lent bibliography, though regretful over the lack of an index and the intrusion of so many misprints. He may also feel that an author who is so good a classical scholar that he can allude to " the obvious tag from Lucretius " without specifying it ought to avoid such mal- formed neologisms as " communoid " and " hypogogic "; and should realise that "a schizoid splitting," if it means anything at all, is
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