Title:

Letter from Harriett Ephrussi-Taylor to Oswald T. Avery

Creator:

Ephrussi-Taylor, Harriett

Recipient:

Avery, Oswald Theodore, 1877-1955

Date:

20 October 1948

Description:

In this letter, Ephrussi-Taylor, who worked for three years in Avery's lab, thanked Avery for his assistance in getting her an appointment at a French institution. She briefly detailed her establishing her own lab and work she planned to conduct in it. A large portion of the letter expressed Ephrussi-Taylor's concern for the state of science in the Soviet Union and her contempt for leftists and communists in Western science who do not condemn the repressive tactics of the Soviet government. She further detailed the activities of her husband, the noted scientist Boris Ephrussi, who fled Russia shortly after the 1917 Revolution and later became a naturalized citizen of France.. Perhaps also, you have read of the tremendous "trial" of Mendelian Genetics in Russia. Being somewhat closer to that state, Paris has been shaken by it. Also, since communists are a recognized and powerful minority in France, it is natural that such an event be of first importance in the Paris press. One of the leading liberal papers ran a series of articles by French scientists on the pros and cons of the "trial". Boris was asked to write an article, and for three or four days struggled with the idea of putting something down to paper. Each day he got unhappier because it was clear that journalism and scientific writing are such different things. To be a journalist one has to toss an article off in a few hours time and not have to much conscience about the precision of what was written. The upshot was that he did not write an article, but instead, obtained the complete reprint of the "trials", in the Pravda. (He reads Russian, it being his native languages.) The trials -- and it is just to call them that only because they result in sweeping condemnations -- were on an enormous scale, and it took days to read the reports. I am tempted to write just a little about them, because the issues at stake are so great, and few enough people will take the trouble or have a chance go read the reports. For us, reading these reports put an absolute end to any hopes that science played any good role in the Soviet Union -- on that science could flourish there. The most important point in this: that the merits of Lysenko's work (if they exist) are of no consequences in the question. The decisions in Moscow are not concerned with the scientific merits of the supposed "two schools of genetics". Then these trials are concerned with establishing once and for all that dialectical materialism is the sole true doctrine, and any scientific facts which are irreconcilable with this doctrine must be discarded as false. Lysenko has developed the thesis that modern genetics is "undialectic", a position which incidentally is totally without reason, and has twisted modern genetic theory to make it simply things it was never intended to. simply. By arousing the purely demagogic elements of the communist party on this basis, he has convinced these highly nationalistic people that modern genetics is nothing but capitalist propaganda. The most significant aspect of the trials, aroused the thesis of Lysenko is the state of mind of the defendants, whose speeches will probably never be translated for the British speaking world. (Unfortunately everyone seems to feel it is more important to read Lysenko's speeches, to gain an impression of what went on.) Three or four of the best genetics in Russia defended themselves, but against cat-calls, boos, and interruptions from the floor of the Academy (the Agriculture Academy). But on the whole, it is clear that everyone is in terror of the consequence of not being on Lysenko 's side. Several, after a defense of modern genetics, had to completely turn around and run into the Lysenko fold -- amid boos and hisses from the Academy members. All efforts to resist were vanquished when Lysenko read that the Cultural Committee of the Communist Party supports his views. Nothing quite equal has happened scientific thought since the Middle Ages - - and because science is now so developed, one can say never has such a large scale extermination of the scientific approach to problems occurred before in the history of man. It is a crushing story. The procession of science by the Soviet Union is equal to that in Hitler Germany at its best, though its practical consequences are not so brutal and so immediate.

Original Repository:

Tennessee State Library and Archives. Oswald T. Avery Papers

Rights:

Reproduced with permission of Anne Ephrussi.

Genre:

Letters (correspondence)

Format:

Text

Extent:

5 pages

Relation:

Letter from Harriett Ephrussi-Taylor to Oswald T. Avery, 1948

Language:

English

Legacy Source Citation:

Original Repository. Tennessee State Library and Archives. Oswald T. Avery Papers. 361

Legacy ID:

CCGMDT

NLM ID:

101584575X574

Profiles Collection:

The Oswald T. Avery Collection

Shareable Link:

https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584575X574

Story Section:

After the Discovery: The Transforming Principle's Reception by the Scientific Community