In the mid-1930s, the agronomist Trofim Lysenko started a campaign against genetics[4] and was supported by Stalin. If the field of genetics' connection to Nazis wasn't enough, Mendelian genetics particularly enraged Stalin due to its founder Gregor Mendel's being a Catholic Christian priest, a fact that flew in the face of the Soviet Union's official atheism and antitheism.[5][6][7][8][9]