SPORT 1913 - 2013

Ideological Principles of Worker Sport Among the participants of the Lucerne confer- ence there were many of those worker sport activists who would then during the coming years hold the leading positions in their na- tional worker sport unions as well as in the international worker sport movement. Gaston Bridoux and Jules Devlieger from Belgium and Tom Groom from England had already attend- ed the meetings in Gent 1913 and in Seraing 1919. German worker sport movement was rep- resented in Lucerne by Fritz Wildung, Corne- lius Gellert and four other delegates. Also An- ton Guillevic from France, Rudolf Silaba from Czechoslovakia and V. J. Kostiainen from Fin- land would all be leading characters of the LSI/ SASI during the 1920’s and 1930’s. In the meet- ing in Lucerne, Bridoux was elected as Presi- dent and Devlieger as Secretary of the LSI. As members of the steering committee were nom- inated Gellert, Guillevic, Silaba and Wildung. The office of the International was located in Brussels (10 Jahre SASI, 13–15). Later, when the new President was elected, the office always moved to the capital of his home country. The Lucerne conference did not compose any official statutes for the International. In- stead of that the participants published a com- mon declaration which crystallised the main ideological principles of worker sport (“Rap- port au 3ème Congrès”). The international working class sport movement endeavoured to realise the aims of socialist physical cul- ture. Therefore the LSI set itself the goal of bringing the socialist physical culture as a

Olympics in Paris 1924. The worker sport lead- ers, too, in their meeting in Seraing decided to boycott Germany and Austria. However, they enquired the opinions from other countries by sending a letter to national unions. Finland’s TUL which had been founded just six months earlier in 1919 answered that it would be ready to join the Workers Sport International only if all the worker sportsmen of the world would be accepted as members. TUL’s chairman Eino Pekkala pointed out in his letter to Gaston Bridoux that it would be unjust to accuse German and Austrian work- ers of starting the war (Hentilä 1982, 136). As soon as the German question had been solved worker sport delegates from seven countries, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, England, Finland, France, Germany and Switzerland met in Lucerne, Switzerland on September 13 th and 14 th , 1920. It should be noted that from Austria, which was one of the strongest work- er sport nations, there was no representation at the conference. Instead of sending a dele- gate, the Austrian worker sport federations promised in a letter to cooperate with the in- ternational worker sport movement. The most important decision of the Lucerne meeting was the foundation of the worker sport inter- national (International Association for Sport and Physical Culture called Lucerne Sports International LSI). As mentioned above the name of the organisation was changed in 1928 to Socialist Workers Sport International, called SASI (Sozialistische Arbeitersport-In- ternationale).

part of the worker movement. Worker sport thus constituted a significant part of the work- ing class culture. Its central task was taken as to educate the socialist youth in both mind and body to be balanced socialist human be- ings who would have the maturity to realise the social aims of the working class move- ment. On the basis of the declaration approved in the Lucerne conference we can summarise the central ideological principles of worker sports as follows: 1. Balance between intellectual and physi- cal education. 2. Priority of mass sport over competitive athletics (competitive athletics could be valuable as ennobling and exemplary ac- tivity but when carried to the extreme competition would lead to degeneration of sports). 3. Promoting of peace and international solidarity. 4. Linkage to political and social goals of the workers movement: “To be an athlete is good but to be an athlete and a socialist is better!“ (This parole roots to the declara- tion of the LSI/SASI accepted by the con- ference of the International in Vienna dur- ing the secondWorkers Olympics in 1931). By the year 1931, the LSI/SASI reached its largest number of membership. The national labour sport unions which belonged to the In- ternational counted around 1.8 million mem- bers (Nachrichten der Sozialistischen Arbeiter- sport-Internationale, Jg. 1931/32) though more

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