Yes, but not for that long. In the 20’s and 30’s, a fraud uneducated “biologist” named Lysenko convinced the Soviet leadership that Mendelian genetics were anti-proletariat in order to boost his political, social, and financial standing. He managed to centralize almost the entirety of Soviet biology around him and squashed any and all researchers that were trying to use actual, real, scientific models of biology and genetics.

Lysenko’s power began to slowly wane, however with the Nazi’s fervent devotion to genetics, the topic once again became taboo and almost all genetics research stalled. Not to mention that during the war, most funds allocated to scientific research went to practical applications that could be used in the short term for war, like metallurgy and physics.

However, by the early 50’s the atmosphere was already changing in regards to genetics, and among the few good reforms of the Khrushchev era, Khrushchev removed the bans on genetical research. However due to nearly 2 decades of bans, underfunding, and negligence, Soviet genetical research was severely stunted. Despite which the program rebounded miraculously and discovered several major foundations still used today in modern biology.