The History Channel, original podcast.

History this week, October 11, 1955.

I'm John Earl.

The letter will remain a secret for decades.

But behind the scenes, in the Communist Party's inner sanctum, it lands like a bomb.

Nearly 300 of the Soviet Union's leading scientists have signed this letter, saying,

essentially, you need to fire the country's most influential scientific thinker, a man named Trafim

Lysenko.

Lysenko was born a poor farm boy, and he'd risen through the ranks to dominate entire

sectors of Soviet science.

Within his domains, he determines which research gets funded, what's taught in schools, what the public

believes, all of it. And he has some bold and unusual ideas. For example, he thinks

that species of plants can instantaneously transform into other species, like wheat can

become rye. And these scientists who write this

letter are banding together to say, look, these ideas are ridiculous. They're holding our country

back. And the West is laughing at us. Lysenko has got to go.

They know that the new leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, is open to reform.

But like Lisenko, Khrushchev is a rags to riches story.

He likes this farm boy turned scientists.

And when he gets the letter, he's pissed. Don't touch my Lysenko, he warns, or heads will roll.

Lysenko, this powerful scientist, keeps his job for now.

But even though the letter-reading scientists have failed,

...