The famous writer, author of fourteen published books, Mark Popovsky, was forced to emigrate from the USSR in 1977 under threat of arrest. The book offered to the attention of readers - a truthful and bitter study of one of the most dramatic pages in the history of Russian science, which survived the attack of Lysenkoism on genetics, the murder of many of its best representatives - was first published in the West. Today, in the conditions of the improvement of Soviet society, not only the name of Mark Popovsky, but his books are also returning to their homeland. This publication is the first in the USSR after a long break. For a wide range of readers.