High Performance Sport in the Context of Soviet Policy and Ideology

Abstract

The theoretical foundations of the ideologization of sports are analyzed: Marxist ideology, the ideas of romantic nationalists. The characteristic features of the Soviet policy in the field of sports are highlighted and described. It is shown that, being politicized, sport played an important domestic political role in the Soviet Union, being an instrument for the formation of group identification of Soviet citizens and the education of a personnel reserve for the Soviet army, industry and other sectors of the economy. It is noted that the sport of high achievements in the international arena successfully fulfilled the tasks assigned to it by the Party and the Government - demonstrating the superiority of the socialist system over the capitalist one. Emphasis is placed on the politicization and symbolic militarization of high-achievement sports.