RUSSIAN SCIENCE
SIR,-4 must confess that I began to read the article Russian Science by Dr. Trevor I. Williams (The Spectator, April 4th) with the greatest interest. It is so rare that a report from a pen of a scientist about the conditions in which science is placed in the U.S.S.R., is appearing in the English Press But I had not gone very far in reading, when to my great surprise I stumbled on the following lines:—" It is reported that in consequence of his (Vavilov's) failure to accept views which he was con- vinced were false he was arrested and executed in 1943." As everyone, who is following the scientific life in Russia, knows, S. I. Vavilov is still the President of the Russian Academy of Science, and Prof. Zysenko, his opponent, who—we must presume from the content of the article— is "popular politically," is, as he was at the time of the controversy between him and Vavilov, one of his colleagues, one of the vice-presidents. If Dr. Williams did not doubt his credentials to write about Russian science in general, and the case of Vavilov in particular, then he ought to know that only a few weeks ago the same "arrested and executed" Vavilov published an article about the work of the Academy of Science— to which Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, devoted
two half-pages.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, I. M. Blum. 18 Horbury Crescent, London, W. ir.
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