You have to understand that Soviet Biology was a pretty sad state of affairs historically, and has only begun to get back on its feet in the last decade or so. My old genetics textbook explains the history of this problem rather nicely:
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a biologist in the former Soviet Union working on the effects of temperature on the development of plants. At the same time, the preeminent geneticist was Nikolai Vavilov. Valivov was interested in growing and mating many varieties and selecting the best to be the breeding stock of the next generation. This is the standard way of improving a plant crop or lifestock breed. The method conforms to genetic principles and therefore is successful. However, it is a slow process that only gradually improves yields.
Lysenko suggested that crop yields could be improved quickly by the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Although doomed to fail because the true and correct mechanisms of inheritance were denied, politically, Lysenko's ideas were greeted with much enthusiasm. The enthusiasm was due not only to the fact that Lysenko promised immediate improvements of crop yields but also to the fact that Lysenkoism was politically favored.
Supported by Stalin, and then Krushchev, Lysenko gained inordinate power in his country. All visible genetic research in the former Soviet Union was forced to conform to Lysenko's Lamarckian views. People who disagreed with him were forced out of power. Vavilov was arrested in 1940 and died in prison in 1943. It was not until Nikita Krushchev lost power in 1964 that Lysenkoism fell out of favor.
For thirty years, Soviet geneticists were forced into fruitless endeavors, forced out of genetics altogether, or punished for their heterodox views. Superb scientists died in prison while crop improvement programs failed, all because Lysenkoism was favored by Soviet dictators.
Taken from pages 6 - 7 of Principles of Genetics 6th Edition, by Robert H. Tamarin. Some nonimportant text was ommited from this quote.
So, you'll have to excuse biologists for being a little skeptical of some of the bizzare things the Soviet Union came up with during that time.
Anyway, as far as the antibacterial viruses go, they aren't exactly a Soviet only endeavor. For example, James D. Watson, one of the scientists that discovered the structure of DNA, worked pretty extensively on these at one point in his life. On page 25 of his book, The Double Helix, he states:
At times, moreover, I was quite pleased with my current experiments on bacterial viruses. Within three months Ole and I had finished a set of experiments on the fate of a bacterial-virus particle when it multiplies inside a bacterium to form several hundred new virus particles. There were enough data for a respectible publication and, using ordinary standards, I knew I could stop work for the rest of the year without being judged unproductive. |
