«Proletarsky Sport» Journal in Struggle for Control Over International Workers’ Sports Movement

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PhD, Associate Professor K.A. Alekseev
St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg

Objective and structure of the study. Proceeding from the analysis of archive materials and sports periodicals, the article presents the circumstances of launching and closing of the "Proletarsky Sport" Journal, the official body of the Executive Committee of the Red Sport International. The Journal began to be published by the Supreme Council of Physical Culture at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1925 for two main purposes: to strengthen the position of the Supreme Council of Physical Culture as the Russian section of Red Sport International; to promote the ideas of proletarian sports movement on the eve of the Workers' Olympiad in Frankfurt.
Results and conclusions. The authors note that propaganda, which became the main prerequisite for launching the "Proletarsky Sport" Journal, was one of the priority activities of Red Sport International. However, the nature, scope and content of propaganda were transformed depending on the tactics dictated by the situation of a particular period. This predetermined the main reason for the imminent termination of the Journal: the need to make a pause to reconsider tactics after the failure in the Workers' Olympiad in Frankfurt. Coupled with a number of additional factors (the conflict at the top of the Soviet physical education system, economic reasons), it made a special agitation-and-propaganda body of the Russian section of Red Sport International unwanted by both the leaders and the audience.

Keywords: international sports, sports periodicals, propaganda, Red Sport International.

References

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