The appearance of Lysenkoism in biological textbooks in Poland was preceded by a flurry of events of a political nature. A council of educational activists of the Polish Workers’ Party (30 October 1948) ordered, among other things, the revision of curricula at all levels of education with the object of “thorough removal of the influence of reactionary ideology and the filling of the curricula with the ideology of historical materialism.”

The First National Congress of School Inspectors (29 May 1949) established that the scientific worldview would henceforth be the basis for teaching in Polish schools. The Central Course for Biology Teachers (17–19 June 1949) replaced school genetics curricula with Michurin-Lysenko theory. A revision of biology curricula was carried out. Starting with the school year 1949/1950, in place of genetics, ​​“rudiments of evolutionism,” including Lysenkoism, were introduced into the curricula.

Initially, there were no suitable textbooks in Polish. A Soviet textbook “Principles of Darwinism” by Melnikov, Shibanov and Korsunskaya was soon translated into Polish. This book went through seven editions in Poland. February 1953 saw the release of a manual for the methodical teaching of biology in classes V-VIII of general primary schools. The main objectives of teaching biology at that time were: to convince pupils of the materialist worldview, and then to ensure that this worldview took root.

Genetics was restored to the curriculum in schools at the beginning of the school year 1957/1958.

The purpose of my presentation is to examine whether indeed Mendelism (genetics) disappeared from the teaching of biology in Polish schools. Was it possible to teach genetics during the era of Lysenkoism in Poland?