SPORT 1913 - 2013

ideology, excessive pursuit of records was one of the signs of the degeneration of bourgeois sport.

Gymnastics Associations, better known as Red Sport International (RSI) or Sportintern. One of the most important tasks of the RSI was to take contact with the left sport oppositions in different countries and encourage them to co- operate with national Communist parties. Outside the Soviet Union the RSI reached major support in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Finland, France and Norway. As mentioned above the Norwegian worker sport federation (AIF) cooperated until 1929 with the RSI. In France, the worker sport movement broke in two parts in 1923. From two relatively small unions, the Fédération Sportive du Travail (FST) was dominated by Communists and counted more members than the Social Demo- cratic Union (Sociétés Sportives et Gymniques du Travail USSGT). The dissolution lasted until 1934 when, in the wake of the antifascist strug- gle organised by the Front Populaire, the movement was united and in the framework of the LSI/SASI a new central union Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail (FSGT) was founded (Hache 1985, 64–67). However, in the first half of the 1920’s the RSI was ready to cooperate with the LSI and its member unions. A number of Soviet athletes and teams participated to sport events in Ger- many and some other Central European coun- tries. In September 1922 a soccer team of the TUL made a tour to Russia playing in seven different cities (Hentilä 1982, 146–148). Nego- tiations about the participation of the RSI to the first Workers Olympic Games in Frankfurt am Main failed. However, talks on coopera-

tion were continued in the third conference of the LSI in Paris in October-November 1925. The representative of the RSI Fritz Reussner was granted 20 minutes speech time to clarify the principles of the Communist sport move- ment (Bericht über den III. Kongress zu Paris Pantin, 12–21). The only member union of the LSI which was in favour of the continuation of talks on cooperation with the RSI was Finland’s TUL. Finns had previously supported the invitation of the RSI to the Frankfurt Games as well. They had throughout positive experiences from the cooperation with Soviet sportsmen. They were able to offer a proper contest which had always been important to the Finns. Moreover, many influential members of the TUL were support- ers of Left Socialist or Communist politics. For these reasons the TUL tried to conciliate in the disputes between the LSI and the RSI. This ef- fort failed and the LSI conference in Paris 1925 declared that unification of the two interna- tionals would be impossible. (Hentilä 1982, 182–186) Competing with RSI athletes in sport events was forbidden with only one exception; it was allowed only in countries where a LSI union did not exist (Bericht über den III. Kon- gress zu ParisPantin 21–22). The political nature of the competition between the LSI and the RSI became more and more evident. The fourth LSI conference was held in Helsinki in August 1927 with the pres- ence of Artur Crispien, member of the secre- tariat of the Socialist Workers International and Chairman of the German Social Demo-

Dark Clouds in the Sky – Political Power Struggle Begins

In point of fact the 1920’s remained the golden age of the international worker sport move- ment. During the second half of the 1920’s ex- acerbated disagreements and power struggles between Social Democrats and Communists weakened the movement seriously. Because of these disputes the LSI/SASI started to strive to closer political cooperation with the Socialist Workers International while in the beginning of the 1920’s its relationship to the Social Democratic movement had been loose and more or less only an affirmation of common ideological aims of the international socialist movement. During the third conference of the Co- mintern held in June-July 1921 in Moscow, a new tactics of “united front” was launched. The Communist parties should cooperate with other progressive elements in society includ- ing Social Democrats. For the international operative work new subdivisions were estab- lished in the Comintern (Gounot 2002, 35–46). The most important of them were the Red In- ternational of Labour Unions (Profintern) and the Communist Youth International. In order to compete with the bourgeois and Social Democrats in the field of sport the Comintern founded a special subdivision which was called International Association of Red Sports and

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