THEROLEOFSPORTBEHINDTHEIRON CURTAIN

In 6 out of 8 appearances at the Summer Olympic Games, the Soviets were top of the medal haul But the sporting success was not necessarily produced in the most wholesome, athlete friendly environment Much of the Soviet Union's success can be directly linked to the governments tightly run sports programs, whereby sport was used as a means to cleanse their communist movement on the world stage An early example of what is now known as ‘sportswashing’

Physical education and sport came to prominence in the Soviet Union during the 1940’s Like all aspects of Soviet life, the physical education program was controlled by the Communist party and its development was harnessed and adjusted to suit the needs of the party Due to sports ability to achieve non-sport objectives, it was hijacked by the Communist party to politically indoctrinate and train the masses After the 1917 Russian revolution, sport was used as a means to prepare the population for defending the socialist state In 1948, the USSR sent experts to the London Olympics and subsequently entered the competition in 1952 thus signalling the beginning of a dominant era for the state The USSR was the major giant of the communist countries and it was the first country in the post-war period to utilise the full extent of the political significance of sport

‘Massovost’ (mass participation) was the central pillar of the program The result of this philosophy was the centrally controlled and organised program that made the state a sporting powerhouse on the international stage Sport was made available to everyone and, under the Communist party, became widely available for everyone This was a major change from the Tsar regime of the past where sport was mainly reserved for the elites in Russia

On the 24th of February 2022, Russia launched a full scale invasion on Ukraine and subsequently caused tens of thousands of deaths and the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War The mass devastation and disruption of the war on the lives of Ukrainians has been well documented and every day the scenes of the destruction are broadcast around the world Many armchair experts regularly make their predictions about the potential end result of this latest act of Russian Imperialism but who actually knows what the future holds for the citizens of Ukraine?

Certainly, we more often than not take sport far more seriously than what it should be and events like the war offer us a chance for perspective, but on the flip side, sport plays a vital part in our lives That is undeniable and Ukraine has given the world a wide range of sporting icons The Klitschko brothers in boxing, Andriy Shevchenko in football and Faina Melnik in athletics to name a few These sportspeople are legends in Ukraine and are embedded in the country’s identity on the international stage Following some research into these heroes, it became clear that they all grew up behind the Iron Curtain. They were introduced to their sports under the rule of the Communist Party Furthermore, it is interesting to investigate what sport looked like in the USSR

To do a quick sport history lesson, the Soviet Union lasted from 1922 to 1991 During this period, the sporting success of the Soviet Union was unprecedented, claiming an incredible 1,010 medals (395 Gold, 319 Silver and 296 Bronze)

The first step in the organisation of sport was the ‘kollektiv’ which was basically the spine of the sport system for the average person In 1967, there was 201, 876 kollektiv with 50,528, 200 members The kollektiv were set up in factories, offices, state farms, schools and higher education institutes with the goal of having people athletically organised at their place of work or study The financing of these kollektiv was provided by the state and trade unions They allocated considerable amounts of money to build stadiums, equipment, finance competitions and to pay coaches and instructors The exact figure spent on striving for sporting excellence was never made public by the Russian government

The dedication to sport is best evidenced by the sheer number of facilities recorded in 1975 By that time, in the USSR, there were 2,895 stadia, 42,000 gyms, 1,231 swimming pools and 90,000 soccer pitches with untold numbers of running tracks, basketball courts, ice rinks etc The most impressive sports complex was located in Moscow; the Central Lenin Stadium A 450-acre site, the complex had a stadium capable of hosting 105,000 people, a 50 metre swimming pool with seating to cater for 15,000 people, an ice arena with a capacity of 10,000, a 20,000 seater stadium able to host handball, volleyball, or volleyball, seven soccer pitches, two archery fields and thirty tennis courts

Like any good system of propaganda, it targets the next generation. There was only one youth organisation in the whole of the Soviet Union This organisation was divided into three categories based on the athletes age (Oktobrists for seven to ten year olds, Pioneers for ten to seventeen year olds and the Komsomols for the eighteen to twenty-five year olds) All children were encouraged or perhaps, more aptly, pressured into participation but entry into the Komsomols was far more selective and rigorous