"Mandelstam and Stalin shared an interest in Lamarckism. Stalin was taken with Lamarck’s theory that acquired characteristics could be passed on, a notion that appeared to back up his belief that Homo sapiens would evolve into Homo sovieticus. Mandelstam appreciated Lamarck’s idea that after reaching its peak with Mozart, evolution could go into reverse:

Perhaps before my lips the whispering was born,
In treelessness the wind was blowing leaves,
And those to whom our life work is bequeathed
Have long ago acquired their final form."

https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-poet-the-tyrant