Professor, Dr. Hab. G.N. Kozlova
Professor, PhD V.L. Skitnevskiy
Associate Professor, PhD N.B. Vorob'ev
Associate Professor, PhD T.S. Sergeeva
N.E. Zhitnikova
Kozma Minin Nizhny Novgorod State University (Minin University), Nizhny Novgorod

Keywords: state power, fast economic growth, social optimism, physical culture, GTO Complex.

Background. For the last few years the national government has been giving increasingly high priority to the physical culture and sports sector in the Russian people’s socialization and development policies. The Physical Culture and Sports “Ready for Labour and Defence” (GTO) Complex being reinstated in modern Russia has been successfully tested in the past hard times and proved highly efficient in contributing to formation of the socially and personally valuable qualities of Soviet people and the spiritual and ethical standards in few generations as it became a basis for the Soviet system of physical education and mass physical culture movement development in the USSR. It was the historical background of the GTO Complex that largely predetermined its highest efficiency and genuine relevance to the realities of those days.

Objective of the study was to analyze the historical background for the Physical Culture and Sports “Ready for Labour and Defence” GTO Complex with an emphasis on the origins, primary needs and opportunities for the Complex design and implementation in the early 1930ies.

Study results and discussion. The project to develop the USSR’s first Physical Culture and Sports “Ready for Labour and Defence” Complex was considered by the contemporaries a new page in the history of national physical culture and sports [3]. The Soviet government at that time viewed national physical culture as a health improvement tool for the labour masses drained by the hard labour in the past period. Having reformed the labour and living conditions of the nation, the national government took persistent efforts to promote physical culture through popular slogans “Healthy spirit in healthy body”, “24-hour physical culture” etc. It was in those enthusiastic times that our country had established the national health system that later on was copied and followed as an example by many nations and recorded in the Global History of Health Service [4].

It should be noted that by the early 1930ies the economic situations in the USSR and USA had drastically changed. Before that, more than a half of the largest industrial companies in the USSR had been developed with financial and/or technical support from the US government [5]. In the situation of the global economic crisis, the genuine American businesslike aptitudes, efficiency and technical mastery were supported by the USSR government policies to invest all the available resources in the economic growth. Moreover, the national government set the objective to at least share the global lead with the USA.

It was widely known in the early 1930ies that the first five-year plan was in fact considered by the Americans a serious challenge to their industrial leadership [1]. The USSR government at that time emphasized the fact that the five-year plan could be completed successfully conditional on the Soviet nation being guaranteed from aggression of the global capitalism [2]. In that situation, the national physical culture sector was expected to evolve to an active contributor to the national military power and defence capacity building efforts.

It the-then social and political situation, it was vitally important for the nation to foster the type of personality that could effectively face the challenges and needs of the hard times. The social optimism of the nation should have been supported by the mass high-quality labour and the relevant physical training system. In the 1930ies, the national physical culture improvement projects were ranked among the top priority initiatives geared to improve health standards and labour efficiency in the national industry. Competitive physical education agenda was viewed as a key element of the multisided applied training and education so much needed by Soviet people. People of those days considered physical culture a systemic multisided method designed to perfect a human body for the benefit of the national labour, industry and defence building movement [8].

It was in that situation that in May 1930 the Young Communist League (Komsomol) came up with the initiative to launch the Physical Culture and Sport "Ready for Labour and Defence" (GTO) Complex. In March 1931, the initiative was supported by the All-USSR Physical Culture Council Presidium and the GTO Complex was endorsed for implementation. In March 1932, the second class of the GTO Complex was introduced, and in 1934 it was followed by the “Ready for Labour and Defence” Complex. The Physical Culture and Sport GTO Complex very soon evolved to a programmatic and regulatory fundamental of Soviet physical culture by setting the guiding criteria for the USSR people’s health improvement and physical development initiatives.

In 1930ies the GTO badge-holders were widely respected as role models demonstrating the best endurance, courage and agility standards. These qualities were in high social demand at that time when the national government made its best to build up and improve the national defence capacity, and people having such qualities were particularly successful being in high demand by the governmental and social institutions. The success made by the Physical Culture and Sport GTO Complex in the USSR was largely due to a great consolidation of efforts by the government and society to solve the critical problems in the national development process. German writer Lion Feuchtwanger who was a contemporary and witness of the Soviet people’s enthusiasm made a special emphasis on the high respect and support of the people to the political leadership of the country incomparable to what he had seen before elsewhere [7]. It should be noted that the writer was expressly sceptical about the communist ideals and the book he published in Amsterdam in his native language was not ordered nor promoted by the Soviet government. It was only after the book was published in Germany that it was translated into Russian and disseminated in the Soviet Union. However, the book was soon removed from the national libraries for different reasons.

It became clear with time that the Physical Culture and Sport GTO Complex was a harmonic element of the groundbreaking reforms of 1930ies in the USSR. It made a great contribution to the people’s growing interest to physical culture and sports and mass physical culture movements at that time.

Conclusion. The powerful social and cultural effects of the Physical Culture and Sport GTO Complex in 1930ies were largely due to the policies and practices of the campaign being organically matched with the vitally important social and individual agendas supported by every citizen in the context of the national industrial and social development process planned to build up a leading global power. The Physical Culture and Sport GTO Complex naturally came into being when the necessary prerequisites and conditions were in place, and it was in fact a well-timed response of the national government to the global challenges and realities of the rapidly changing global relationships and situation.

References

1. Devyaty Vsesoyuzny s'ezd VLKSM. Stenograficheskiy otchet (The 9th All-Union Congress of LYCLSU. Verbatim). – Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1931. – 489 p.
2.  Krasnaya Armiya – massovaya shkola fizkul'tury (The Red Army - mass physical culture school // Fizicheskaya kul'tura i sport. – 1930. – # 9 (February 15). – P. 1.
3. Petukhov P.M. Znachok «Gotov k trudu i oborone» kak osnova sovetskoy sistemy fizicheskoy kul'tury (Badge "Ready for Labour and Defence" as a basis of Soviet system of physical culture) / P.M. Petukhov // Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. – 1931. – # 6. – P. 6-14.
4. Piramida Semashko (Semashko's Pyramid) // Ekspert. – 2011. – # 30-31. – P. 68-72.
5. Suponitskaya I.M. Amerikanizatsiya Sovetskoy Rossii v 1920-1930 gody (Americanization of Soviet Russia in 1920-1930) / I.M. Suponitskaya // Voprosy istorii. – 2013. – # 9. – P. 46-59.
6. Suponitskaya «Sovetizatsiya» Ameriki v 1920-1930 gody (Sovietization of America in 1920-1930) / I.M. Suponitskaya // Voprosy istorii. – 2014. – # 2. – P. 59-72.
7. Feuchtwanger L. Moskva. 1937. (Moscow. 1937). Translated from the German / L. Feuchtwanger. – Moscow: Gos. izd. hud. Literatury, 1937. – 93 p.
8. Fizicheskaya kul'tura // Bol'shaya meditsinskaya entsiklopediya. (Physical Education // Great Medical Encyclopedia). Ch. ed. N.A. Semashko. V. 33. – Moscow: St. ed. of biological and medical literature, 1936. – P. 686.

Corresponding author: nikolay.nn@mail.ru

Abstract

The article gives an overview of the historical prerequisites for the Physical Culture and Sport "Ready for Labour and Defence" (GTO) Complex launched by the USSR government back in the 1930ies. At that time the nation showed rapidly growing efficiency in every domain of the economic and social life backed by the USSR ambitious policies to evolve into a global power, and these positive trends gave a great boost and strategic mission for the newly launched GTO Complex.

It was in the mid-1920ies that, along with the “illiteracy liquidation” national project, the national movement for the “physical illiteracy liquidation” was initiated with virtually every social category being actively involved in sporting groups in the situation when the health-improvement and physical culture campaign and public agenda was on the rise.

In July of 1929, physical education was introduced as a mandatory academic discipline by every higher education establishment of Russia; and since 1930 physical culture was qualified a mandatory academic subject by every university of the USSR. To facilitate the academic curricula being duly implemented, every university established a Physical Culture and Sports Department and recruited the relevant professionals for training and education.

Later on, in 1934, the “Ready for Labour and Defence” (BGTO) Complex was introduced as a system primarily catering for the health-improvement aspects of the national movement. Every relevant initiative for the young generation and students was designed in compliance with the standard programs based on the BGTO and GTO Complexes and the Universal All-Union Classification.

The 1936 Constitution set forth the right of people to found non-governmental organizations including sport associations. As a result, the GTO Complex was harmonically integrated with the other groundbreaking processes taking place in the country at that time. The study makes a special emphasis on the national policy revisions that preceded the GTO Complex being initiated and were of significant effect on the public attitudes to the Complex missions. The active popular support secured the valuable contribution made by the GTO Complex into the progress of the Soviet society.