quote source: https://archive.org/details/safonov-land-in-bloom/page/318/mode/2up?view=theater
Concerning his own future as a Soviet scientist, [Lysenko] speaks in the following terms:
“In our Soviet Union men and women are not born: organisms are born, but men and women are made—tractor drivers, motor drivers, mechanics, academicians, scientists. I was not born a man, I was made a man. And to feel that you are living in such an environment is more than being happy.”
He was just trying to apply the principles of communism to plants, it sometimes works, but his aversion to genetic sciences meant he made some questionable conclusions about crop density.
Putting crops closer together can strengthen a root system, but also opens the door to blight spreading faster.