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Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR
The role and development of sport in Soviet society received little contemporary attention, in the West or in Russia. Although it was widely banned after the Russian Revolution, and viewed as a tool developed by the bourgeoisie for the training of body and mind during the rise of capitalism, the USSR was among the world's sporting powers. This 1977 book examines the evolution of sport in Russia from its early association with health and hygiene, through a period of functional association with labour and defence, to its post-war importance as a means of enhancing the prestige of Soviet communism abroad. The historical role of Soviet sport is followed from the considerable part that sport played during the period of rapid industrialisation, through its strange fate during the years of mass repression, to its emergence as a major institution after the Second World War.
446 pages, Paperback
First published May 27, 1977
About the author
James Riordan
203 books33 followersRiōdan, Jeimuzu 1936-2012
Riordan, Dž.
Riordan, Džejms.
Riordan, James
Riordan, James William 1936-2012
Riordan, Jim, 1936-2012
James Riordan (10 October 1936 – 10 February 2012) was an English novelist, broadcaster, sports historian, association football player and Russian scholar.
Well known for his work Sport in Soviet Society, the first academic look at sport in the Soviet Union, and for his children's novels.
Riordan, Dž.
Riordan, Džejms.
Riordan, James
Riordan, James William 1936-2012
Riordan, Jim, 1936-2012
James Riordan (10 October 1936 – 10 February 2012) was an English novelist, broadcaster, sports historian, association football player and Russian scholar.
Well known for his work Sport in Soviet Society, the first academic look at sport in the Soviet Union, and for his children's novels.
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March 8, 2026(for thesis)
foundational text in soviet sport historiography- riordan is the goat
foundational text in soviet sport historiography- riordan is the goat
January 7, 2022
Sparatevelo in vena e gioitene
November 13, 2014
James Riordan’s Sport in Soviet Society is one of the first attempts to chronicle the entirety of the work’s eponymous subject or, for that matter, any aspect of Soviet popular culture. As an employee of the Soviet Union, Riordan gained access to primary sources that were normally unavailable to westerners and used them to present arguably the first glimpse that anyone had of the true workings of the socialist sport system. Although his narrative presents a traditional view of Soviet life and can be dry at times, its rich detail illuminates what was, at the time, a completely unknown topic.
Riordan’s text does not contain much in the way of an overarching argument or centralizing theme and each of his chapters could almost be read independently, as if they were individual essays. Thus, while there are recurring themes and plenty of instances of recapitulation, the ideal way to summarize this book is by describing the major objectives of each chapter. The author introduces his work by placing sport within the Soviet rubric of physical culture, which also includes “organised physical education”, “playful activities or games”, and “active leisure pursuits”. He then begins by looking at pre-revolutionary sport in Russia from 1860-1917. While this section contains a plethora of information on the arrival and organization of various sports, the main idea is that the emancipation of the serfs and subsequent urban development led to the formation of a middle class and a more receptive environment for leisure activities. Although they were dominated by foreigners in the early years, the government attempted to appropriate the clubs for the service of national unity. While they failed overall in meeting the needs of the population, they nevertheless established the structures and foundations that would be necessary for the Soviets to develop their own system of sport.
After tracing the ideological roots of Soviet physical culture, which included the Sokol gymnastic movement, the reforms of Pyotr Lesgaft, the physiologists Ivan Sechyonov and Ivan Pavlov, and Marxism-Leninism, Riordan continues his analysis by examining the militarization of sport in the first three years following the Bolshevik takeover. In this era, the Vsevobuch was formed to train new recruits in physical fitness so that they could serve in the ongoing civil war. In order to accomplish this end, it requisitioned facilities and resources from sports clubs and placed an emphasis on hygiene and health. Attempts to insert physical education into the curriculum began at this time, although the nascent government was unable to fund a genuine program. Competitive sport was curtailed, although not eliminated, while physical culture festivals were held for the first time.
Having won the civil war, the Bolsheviks shifted their attention from military matters to the issue of gaining domestic support by improving the lives of the people who had suffered under “war communism”. To do so, they engaged in the “New Economic Policy”, which was a “step backwards” to a freer market and political scene. In the realm of sports, the NEP raised questions about how sport was to be organized and by whom. There was general agreement that the military approach was no longer needed, and thus the Vsevobuch was disbanded in 1923, but there was little other coherency in the Soviet sport plan from 1921-1928. Friction between trade unions and the Komsomol, in addition to creeping professionalism, led to differing theories on the value of “competition”, something that had been supported by the Vsevobuch. Some opposed competition as being part of a “bourgeois” system and offered proletarian theatrical games as an alternative, while hygienists decried competition as a distraction from the health and hygienic elements of physical culture, although they admitted that it could be beneficial under certain circumstances. Regardless, the party settled the issue in 1925 when it issued its first cogent policy on sport, which supported competition as useful for engendering accomplishment and reining in youth. Nonetheless, sport was still a low priority for state resources and its integration into the education system was haphazard until 1929, when it was made compulsory.
The prewar Stalin years concentrated on improving the administration of sports organization. The two major developments of this era were the creation of “targets” for achievement in physical culture, known as “GTO badges” (or "BTGO badges" for schoolboys), and the introduction of a ranking system to coordinate incentives for athletic proficiency. These changes set up a tension between encouraging mass participation and engendering individual success that remained in play up to Riordan’s day. The system of physical education improved with the addition of these “targets”, although there was continued stress on health and hygiene until 1937, when the curriculum began to focus on individual sports. Nonetheless, many schools had difficulties in meeting requirements due to the lack of facilities, equipment, and instructors. The government also encouraged a “production gymnastics” movement in the factories, but this failed to catch on due to managerial concerns about not having sufficient time to meet production quotas and workers being too exhausted from their jobs to engage in extraneous physical activity. During World War II, schools transformed their programs to focus on military exercise, while the government centralized control over sport and used it to boost morale by holding contests.
Sport decentralized and returned to its old ways after the conflict, but now the focus was on international competition and demonstrating that the Soviets were superior on the world scene. This lead to structural changes to incorporate the requirements of joining international bodies (such as amateurism) and was accompanied by a purge of sports figures with “foreign” contacts. Having failed to live up to expectations, the state revised the target and ranking systems in the hopes of encouraging more participation and producing better athletes. The education system, meanwhile, refocused on children’s health, but still lacked the resources to accomplish the aims of the curriculum. After Stalin’s death, an increase in the standards of living left more time and money for leisure, which inspired the government to invest even more into sports to meet this new demand.
Riordan’s ninth and tenth chapters are his most extensive and seek to chronicle a wide array of topics in Soviet sport. Among these are the difficulties in engaging the countryside, the 1966 state resolution to reorganize sport and make it universal, diminishing audiences, sources of funding, the failure to provide adequate facilities and instructors, physical education training centers, the connection between the military and sport, the integration of the Soviet republics, women, and extracurricular activities that were available for schoolboys whose interest in sport is not satiated by the general curriculum. His final chapter focuses on sport and foreign policy and identifies three phases, all of which include a continuing trend of using sport to foster good relations. From 1917 through 1928, the state used sport to promote “proletarian internationalism” and oppose bourgeois values. From 1929 through 1945 the government was wary of internal and external threats, leading to a focus on “socialism in one country” rather than world revolution, and thus engaged physical culture to strengthen the nation’s “defense”. Finally, after World War II, the state sought to use sport to demonstrate their superiority on the international scene, maintain Soviet bloc unity, and win support from developing countries.
Even modern studies rarely approach the Soviet sport system as a whole with such depth, and thus the level of detail about sport in the pre-glasnost era remains a valuable source of information even today. Moreover, Riordan’s work was revolutionary in the sense that few of his contemporaries viewed sport (or even popular culture in general) as a subject worthy of academic rigor, and thus his book helped pioneer sport as a legitimate way to investigate a society, even if it did not advance much in the way of an argument. Nonetheless, it does have its weaknesses. For one thing, Riordan tends to be an apologist for the Soviet Union and downplay negative aspects, something that, while it may have been necessary for him to continue his work in the country, makes portions of his analysis seem suspect in the post-Soviet era. For example, he dismisses “shamateurism” as infrequent abuses of the amateur program and denies that the Soviets ever had a Russification agenda. He also argues that the increase in leisure and prosperity did not lead to significant social stratification, at least not relative to western nations, and overall makes the system seem less corrupt and more functional and equitable than it truly was. Nonetheless, Sport in Soviet Society is an invaluable resource and an important milestone in the historiography of Soviet popular culture. While it may be somewhat outdated now, I recommend it to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Soviet sport or a contemporary and unique perspective on late Soviet life.
Riordan’s text does not contain much in the way of an overarching argument or centralizing theme and each of his chapters could almost be read independently, as if they were individual essays. Thus, while there are recurring themes and plenty of instances of recapitulation, the ideal way to summarize this book is by describing the major objectives of each chapter. The author introduces his work by placing sport within the Soviet rubric of physical culture, which also includes “organised physical education”, “playful activities or games”, and “active leisure pursuits”. He then begins by looking at pre-revolutionary sport in Russia from 1860-1917. While this section contains a plethora of information on the arrival and organization of various sports, the main idea is that the emancipation of the serfs and subsequent urban development led to the formation of a middle class and a more receptive environment for leisure activities. Although they were dominated by foreigners in the early years, the government attempted to appropriate the clubs for the service of national unity. While they failed overall in meeting the needs of the population, they nevertheless established the structures and foundations that would be necessary for the Soviets to develop their own system of sport.
After tracing the ideological roots of Soviet physical culture, which included the Sokol gymnastic movement, the reforms of Pyotr Lesgaft, the physiologists Ivan Sechyonov and Ivan Pavlov, and Marxism-Leninism, Riordan continues his analysis by examining the militarization of sport in the first three years following the Bolshevik takeover. In this era, the Vsevobuch was formed to train new recruits in physical fitness so that they could serve in the ongoing civil war. In order to accomplish this end, it requisitioned facilities and resources from sports clubs and placed an emphasis on hygiene and health. Attempts to insert physical education into the curriculum began at this time, although the nascent government was unable to fund a genuine program. Competitive sport was curtailed, although not eliminated, while physical culture festivals were held for the first time.
Having won the civil war, the Bolsheviks shifted their attention from military matters to the issue of gaining domestic support by improving the lives of the people who had suffered under “war communism”. To do so, they engaged in the “New Economic Policy”, which was a “step backwards” to a freer market and political scene. In the realm of sports, the NEP raised questions about how sport was to be organized and by whom. There was general agreement that the military approach was no longer needed, and thus the Vsevobuch was disbanded in 1923, but there was little other coherency in the Soviet sport plan from 1921-1928. Friction between trade unions and the Komsomol, in addition to creeping professionalism, led to differing theories on the value of “competition”, something that had been supported by the Vsevobuch. Some opposed competition as being part of a “bourgeois” system and offered proletarian theatrical games as an alternative, while hygienists decried competition as a distraction from the health and hygienic elements of physical culture, although they admitted that it could be beneficial under certain circumstances. Regardless, the party settled the issue in 1925 when it issued its first cogent policy on sport, which supported competition as useful for engendering accomplishment and reining in youth. Nonetheless, sport was still a low priority for state resources and its integration into the education system was haphazard until 1929, when it was made compulsory.
The prewar Stalin years concentrated on improving the administration of sports organization. The two major developments of this era were the creation of “targets” for achievement in physical culture, known as “GTO badges” (or "BTGO badges" for schoolboys), and the introduction of a ranking system to coordinate incentives for athletic proficiency. These changes set up a tension between encouraging mass participation and engendering individual success that remained in play up to Riordan’s day. The system of physical education improved with the addition of these “targets”, although there was continued stress on health and hygiene until 1937, when the curriculum began to focus on individual sports. Nonetheless, many schools had difficulties in meeting requirements due to the lack of facilities, equipment, and instructors. The government also encouraged a “production gymnastics” movement in the factories, but this failed to catch on due to managerial concerns about not having sufficient time to meet production quotas and workers being too exhausted from their jobs to engage in extraneous physical activity. During World War II, schools transformed their programs to focus on military exercise, while the government centralized control over sport and used it to boost morale by holding contests.
Sport decentralized and returned to its old ways after the conflict, but now the focus was on international competition and demonstrating that the Soviets were superior on the world scene. This lead to structural changes to incorporate the requirements of joining international bodies (such as amateurism) and was accompanied by a purge of sports figures with “foreign” contacts. Having failed to live up to expectations, the state revised the target and ranking systems in the hopes of encouraging more participation and producing better athletes. The education system, meanwhile, refocused on children’s health, but still lacked the resources to accomplish the aims of the curriculum. After Stalin’s death, an increase in the standards of living left more time and money for leisure, which inspired the government to invest even more into sports to meet this new demand.
Riordan’s ninth and tenth chapters are his most extensive and seek to chronicle a wide array of topics in Soviet sport. Among these are the difficulties in engaging the countryside, the 1966 state resolution to reorganize sport and make it universal, diminishing audiences, sources of funding, the failure to provide adequate facilities and instructors, physical education training centers, the connection between the military and sport, the integration of the Soviet republics, women, and extracurricular activities that were available for schoolboys whose interest in sport is not satiated by the general curriculum. His final chapter focuses on sport and foreign policy and identifies three phases, all of which include a continuing trend of using sport to foster good relations. From 1917 through 1928, the state used sport to promote “proletarian internationalism” and oppose bourgeois values. From 1929 through 1945 the government was wary of internal and external threats, leading to a focus on “socialism in one country” rather than world revolution, and thus engaged physical culture to strengthen the nation’s “defense”. Finally, after World War II, the state sought to use sport to demonstrate their superiority on the international scene, maintain Soviet bloc unity, and win support from developing countries.
Even modern studies rarely approach the Soviet sport system as a whole with such depth, and thus the level of detail about sport in the pre-glasnost era remains a valuable source of information even today. Moreover, Riordan’s work was revolutionary in the sense that few of his contemporaries viewed sport (or even popular culture in general) as a subject worthy of academic rigor, and thus his book helped pioneer sport as a legitimate way to investigate a society, even if it did not advance much in the way of an argument. Nonetheless, it does have its weaknesses. For one thing, Riordan tends to be an apologist for the Soviet Union and downplay negative aspects, something that, while it may have been necessary for him to continue his work in the country, makes portions of his analysis seem suspect in the post-Soviet era. For example, he dismisses “shamateurism” as infrequent abuses of the amateur program and denies that the Soviets ever had a Russification agenda. He also argues that the increase in leisure and prosperity did not lead to significant social stratification, at least not relative to western nations, and overall makes the system seem less corrupt and more functional and equitable than it truly was. Nonetheless, Sport in Soviet Society is an invaluable resource and an important milestone in the historiography of Soviet popular culture. While it may be somewhat outdated now, I recommend it to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Soviet sport or a contemporary and unique perspective on late Soviet life.
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