The Importance Of Participation In Sports

Before the bolshevik revolution and the events that followed, participation in sports were viewed as a luxury for many Russians. The sports were often restricted to the upper class, and while the tail end of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century slowly showed sports becoming more accessible to the middle classes, it was still largely unavailable to the peasants or working class. However, the Bolshevik Revolution, brought a redefining of what a sport was to the Russians. It was no longer merely physical competition between individuals or teams, which is how western culture viewed it, but rather a necessary activity to ensure maximum productivity out of the public. These new, different ideas ,which are explored by authors like Riordan,were integrated into Soviet culture through the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s, and established the foundation for

The Bolshevik revolution in 1917 allowed for the implementation of new Soviet ideals that promoted collectivism and body and mind dualism that started the deviation of the development for Soviet Sports compared to that of Western Societies. The marxist ideals that came about with the revolution allowed for the tearing down of classes. They started to promote this idea that everyone was as capable as everyone else. Furthermore, the soviets wanted to maximize the production of their society; they wanted to ensure they had citizens who were mentally strong so they could contribute to society at a maximum capacity. In a chapter titled “The ideological roots of Soviet physical education and sport” in the book “Sport in Society”, Riordan explores the many different ideologies and figures that the Soviets pulled information from in order to achieve their intentions. One important ideology they relied on, according to Riordan, was the Marxist idea of body-mind dualism. Riordan