Sport and Socialism
30/03/2021
Peter Craig
“Soviet athletes are successful not because they constitute a privileged elite, but because the society they live in makes the widest possible provision for all to take part in sport” [1].
I recently wrote an article about the negative effects capitalism has had on the world’s favourite sport [2]. Those issues aren’t just limited to football, however. Everywhere one cares to look, examples can be found of how the dominant social system has eaten away at the edges of what working people love about sport, commercialised it, taken ownership away from workers, all to line the pockets of capitalists. But there is another way of running society and another way of organising sport. Throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, workers who have won political power have improved the health of their people, bettered the nations in which they lived, and came to dominate international sport – because they applied the logic of socialism, as they did with all things, to its organisation.
Sport in the communist world echoed the Marxist idea of the dialectic: the interconnectedness of things. Understanding the link between physical and mental well-being, and the well-being of individuals with that of society, enabled socialist governments to use sport to create all-around healthy individuals and by extension healthier nations [3]. Sport was not just a pastime; it was seen as a way to change society and the people who lived in it [4]. In the USSR, sport was “proclaimed an essential part of the way of life of all citizens”, and “the state-centralised control of sport prevented commercial exploitation of mass spectator sports for private profit” [5]. In the Mao-era of the People’s Republic of China, sports education sought to “encourage children, young people and teenagers to take up physical training for the sake of the revolution… so as to serve proletarian politics, workers, soldiers, peasants, and productive labour” [6]. Fidel Castro proclaimed “our athletes are the children of the Revolution and, at the same time, the standard bearers of that same Revolution” [7].
Early in the history of the USSR, with the newly established workers state under siege from foreign and domestic enemies eager to snuff out the revolution, the most immediate task of Soviet sports programs was to provide trained conscripts for the Red Army as soon as possible. Beyond that existential threat, sport was seen as the quickest and cheapest way to improve the health of an uneducated and disease-ravaged population [8]. As early as 1917, Mao Zedong was writing about the necessity of physical health amongst the working class [9]. Sports movements in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic were also aimed at preparing citizens for work and defence [10].
Throughout the socialist world, workers’ governments invested massively in the physical culture of the citizens, by building facilities, promoting physical health, training sports personnel and organising huge sporting contests. Everyday men and women volunteered to build sporting facilities for the betterment of society [11], and in Cuba almost all grassroots sport was facilitated by enthusiastic volunteers [12]. In the GDR there was massive investment in playing equipment and facilities, and rail fare was subsidised for sports participants [13]. Before the Communist Party came to power in China, “the vast majority of Chinese had never stepped into a classroom, much less participated in physical education or sport” [14]. After the Revolution, China began giving education to workers in sports training [15], enacted a national program of mass exercise and fitness [16], and in 26 years constructed 135 stadia, 100 gymnasia and 1,510 swimming pools [17], as well as thousands of local playing fields and factory sporting facilities, often designed and built by local residents [18]. By 1980 “exercise and recreational programs [were] generally available to most people throughout China” [19]. Even Cuba, poor and agricultural as it was, set up sports equipment factories with help from the Soviet Union as the American blockade made supplies hard to come by. The equipment was then distributed to schools, colleges and clubs, and made freely available to all competitors. Formerly private sports clubs were nationalised and became free for public use – even hotel swimming pools were made available to all [20]. The Cuban government also set up an Institute of Sports Medicine, an example of the communist scientific approach to sport which was the envy of capitalist countries for decades [21]. The very nature of socialist society led to gains when it came to the workers sporting lives – with free public health services, injured athletes were ensured free treatment and rehabilitation, and the reduction in the length of the workday allowed more time for recreation [22].
In the USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries, a structure was eventually settled upon which tied sporting clubs to trade unions, with voluntary clubs for workers in different industries. In the former USSR vestiges of this still exist today, with various sporting clubs in eastern Europe named ‘Lokomotiv’ (railway workers), Dinamo (security services), etc. These clubs were financed by union dues, and members had the right to free use of facilities and equipment, as well as rights to vote for and be elected to administrative positions [23].
There was a focus on fitness for all stages of life. In Czechoslovakia, educational reformer Jan Komensky’s concept of “permanent education” for all people from birth to late old age was applied to physical culture as well as mental study [24], ranging from gymnastic exercises for parents and their young children, to specialised exercises for the aged [25]. In Cuba, children were encouraged to exercise even before the start of their formal education – mothers were even taught how to gently exercise their babies limbs [26]. In 1974, schoolchildren made up 43% of the regular sportspeople in the USSR [27]. Across the socialist world there were free sports schools for children and teens who showcased significant ability [28]. Establishing these schools was a particularly mammoth effort in the GDR, where thousands of facilities had been damaged during the war [29]. There were also specialised schools to allow disabled children to participate in sport [30]. Throughout the Warsaw Pact, students in higher education who were physically able were expected to participate in mandatory sport, to improve physical health as well as building “team-spirit, decisiveness, perseverance, discipline, daring, honesty and the ability to be self-critical” [31]. In Chinese factories there were sets of exercises designed specifically for workers in different trades [32]. Mao also led by example, famously demonstrating his love for hiking and swimming [33], and used his swims in the Yangtze River at Wuhan as political theatre [34].
A picture of Mao after swimming in the Xiang River.
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
In contrast with professional sport under capitalism, socialist countries made sure to provide an education and a pathway to a life beyond elite sport to their athletes [35]. According to one illustrative anecdote, in 1971, 24 out of 27 players of the Spartak Moscow football team were studying or had completed study in higher education [36]. Compare this to those athletes in our society who under-perform, are injured, or simply get too old to compete. A lucky few might move to a career in sports media, but far too many are left by the wayside as cast-offs of a broken system – it is estimated as many as 80% of NFL players and 60% of NBA players are bankrupt just a few short years after the end of their playing careers [37].
A pillar of sport under socialism was internationalism. Sport was a way of bringing people together through friendly competition, and rejecting the racism and sexism of the old empires. In October 1920, the USSR hosted the first Central Asian Olympics, in which 3,000 Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmenian, Russian and Kirghiz athletes took part [38]. The Soviet journal “Sport in the USSR” stated: “The integrative functions of sport are great. This has immense importance for our multinational state… Sporting competition [has] played an important part in cementing the friendship of Soviet peoples” [39]. The GDR educated many PE teachers, coaches and officials from third world countries, including Cuba, at its University for Physical Culture – with four year psychical education degrees also including 300 hours of study in Marxism-Leninism [40]. The People’s Republic of China championed the slogan “friendship first, competition second” to promote internal unity and to display the fraternal ideals of socialism to others [41]. China also supplied the Third World with equipment and assisted in the building of major sports facilities [42]. After the Cuban Revolution, Eastern Bloc countries provided coaches and advisers to set up training and teaching programs as the island nation struggled with the American blockade [43].
Sport was also seen as part of the struggle for women’s liberation, in areas where traditional culture had banned their participation [44], and was indicative of the equal status of women in socialist society generally – “the products of a society which has tried to give women the opportunity to break out of the traditional boundaries” [45]. In the 1976 Montreal Olympics, women from the GDR won more medals than all women from other nations combined [46].
“Victory [in World War II] gave the Soviet people a sense of pride in their achievements… Now they could take on the world in another – peaceful – form of contest” [47].
In 1948, the Communist Party Central Committee called on sporting organisations in the USSR to “spread sport to every corner of the land, to raise the level of skill and to help Soviet sportsmen win world supremacy in the immediate future” [48]. This quest for athletic dominance over the capitalist world would be realised in a matter of decades.
When socialist countries debuted at the Olympics in 1952, they won 29% of the medals. By 1972 they upped the count to 47%. In 1976 at Montreal they won 57% and the German Democratic Republic, a country of just 17 million people, won more gold medals than the USA, Canada, Britain and France combined [49] – even bettering the results of the combined Germany under Nazi rule in 1936 [50]. Also in those games, the small, poor nation of Cuba came 8th in the medal table [51].
East German Athletes Waldemar Cierpinski, Hans-Georg Reimann and Karl-Heinz Stadtmüller at the Olympic Village in Montreal 1976.
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R0716-0111 / Gahlbeck, Friedrich / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons.
Cuba also defied the American blockade to participate in the 1966 Central American Games. Cuban athletes had to travel by boat as Puerto Rican authorities would have denied their plane landing permission – after arriving in San Juan they went on to dominate the medals table [52]. Fidel Castro was confident enough to claim in 1962 that if the USA ever accepted peaceful coexistence with the island nation, the Cubans would beat them at baseball and “prove the advantage of revolutionary over capitalist sport”. It is worth noting that Cuba achieved all this sporting excellence while also reducing illiteracy from 77% to 4% [53], highlighting the efforts of socialist countries to improve people in both body and mind. Between 1945 and 1975, Czechoslovakia won 83 Olympic medals, 33 of them gold [54].
Most impressively of all, the USSR topped the medal count in six of the eight summer games in which it competed. In fact, Soviet athletic dominance was such that despite appearing at just eight tournaments, and having not competed for over 30 years, the USSR is still second only to the United States in the all-time leader board [55]. After the Montreal Olympics, the President of the GDR Olympic Committee declared: “For the first time the athletes of the socialist countries have gained absolute ascendancy…. The sportsmen and women of the socialist countries – headed by the Soviet Union – received 54.5% of the points” [56].
While sadly some of the nations which achieved so much sporting excellence – improving the health and education of workers while doing so – no longer exist, their historical example demonstrates what is possible. Even we communists living under capitalism can and should involve ourselves in grassroots organisations and begin to stake a claim of renewed working class ownership of sport. Something as simple as joining the supporters club of your local football code team will lead to opportunities to interact with working people who might not normally cross your path. Local sports clubs can be an excellent avenue for engaging with working people, for charity work, and supporting communities that are often under-served by the capitalist state. Almost every locality in Australia has a rugby league, AFL, soccer or cricket team, presenting a wealth of opportunities.
Even forming new teams is an exciting prospect. Imagine if local clubs run by communists, with teams made up of communists, were dominating suburban sport in the way the 20th century communists dominated the Olympics! Clubs like this would be a way of concretely improving the lives of disadvantaged communities while being excellent avenues for outreach and even agitation – sports clubs have plenty of space for holding film screenings and meetings. All the countries in this article understood the intertwining of sport and politics, and made full use of it.
While some of those countries may now be gone, their historic achievements not just in sport, but art, science, and all other pursuits they set their mind to showcase the limitless possibilities of what we can achieve once the working class is free from capitalist slavery. A better world is possible; we just have to fight for it.
References:
[1] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.15
[2] https://auscp.org.au/publications/the-ugly-truth-about-the-beautiful-game/
[3] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.15, 110
[4] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.15
[5] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.49
[6] “Structural Physical Exercise Standard Regulations”, New Sports, May 1975
[7] 1974 Speech
[8] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.17-18
[9] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.111
[10] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.65, 78
[11] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.65-66, 165
[12] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.160
[13] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.77
[14] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.109
[15] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.114-115
[16] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.119
[17] China Reconstructs, December 1975
[18] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.134
[19] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.125
[20] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.163-164
[21] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.165
[22] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.123
[23] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.24
[24] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.57
[25] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.62
[26] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.166
[27] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.42
[28] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.43, 77, 127
[29] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.84
[30] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.126
[31] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.90-91
[32] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.120
[33] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.112
[34] https://supchina.com/2021/07/14/power-of-symbolism-the-swim-that-changed-chinese-history/
[35] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.46-49
[36] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.53
[37] https://stories.avvo.com/money/bankrupt-professional-athletes.html
[38] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.18
[39] Sport v SSSR, 1973
[40] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.89-90
[41] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.111
[42] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.136
[43] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.146
[44] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.22
[45] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.93
[46] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.92
[47] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.28
[48] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.30
[49] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.9
[50] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.95
[51] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.9
[52] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.147
[53] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_literacy_campaign
[54] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.64
[55] http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/russia-and-its-empires/tyler-benson/
[56] James Riordan, Sport Under Communism, p.97