Socialist Science? Between Ideology and Utopia in East German Biology and Chemistry Textbooks.

Textbooks; Textbook bias; Science & state; Communism & education; Science education; Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de, 1744-1829; Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich, 1898-1976; Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953; Cultural policy

This article focuses on science textbooks produced in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany, while the country was part of the Soviet Bloc. The author tracks how the texts were used to promote ideological agendas of government approved Marxist-Leninist philosophies. He discusses the Communist Party's efforts to promote socialist revisionism of science and scientific methods under the leadership of Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin. The theories of Soviet agronomist Trofim D. Lysenko and French naturalist Jean Lamarck are discussed. The author draws parallels between his historic findings and contemporary issues of textbook censorship in the U.S.