Molecular biology in the Soviet Russia (An essay)

Stages of the evolvement and development of the major directions of molecular biology in the 1950–1980’s and its prehistory bracketing the 1920–1940’s are considered against the backgrounds of the history of the Soviet science. Short outlines of the lives and activities of the leading scientists who shaped the directions of and provided for success in studying supramolecular cell structures and molecular mechanisms of processes on a cellular level. This essay, which is far from exhaustive in describing the problems that the Soviet scientists have been dealing with, does not cover the studies of the last decade, nor does it evaluate the contributions of the living molecular biologists.