Probably the most interesting thing from the article was the strategy used to deflect criticism:

He would denounce these people. He would say, "I'm trying to help the country, I'm doing good work for agriculture, and we've got these bourgeois biologists out there in their laboratories, they're working with fruit flies and things that have nothing to do with agriculture. They're fly-lovers and people-haters. ... They're actually wrecking our agriculture by ... diverting our attention from the main task at hand..."

and then the politicians and judges would arrest them.

These forms of appeal to emotion are terrifyingly powerful. People are scared of some form of physical harm and will grasp at any snake oil salesman that offers a solution.

You see much the same response every time someone says "do it for the children".