Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Series Number 22)

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 worlds 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.