From Football to Parachuting: Physical Education and Sports at the “Krasny Putilovets” Plant in the 1920s — Early 1930s

Abstract

This study is devoted to the under researched issue of development of physical education and sports at the grassroots level. The task was to identify the mechanism of recruiting participants to sports teams and societies; to consider the process of introduction to sports at the micro-level of the enterprise; to study the role of physical culture in labor processes. The cornerstone of the Soviet mass society were collectives formed at factories, and therefore one of the largest factories in Petrograd/Leningrad — “Krasnyi Putilovets”, which had not only rich labor and revolutionary history, but also sports history, was chosen as an example. The research source base included archival materials; reviews and results of the survey of the physical education club at the plant; reviews of the activity of the sports club; discussions of the development of physical culture and sports, etc. As far as research methods are concerned, the authors turned to everyday history and its components — the history of sports and the history of leisure, as well as to microhistory. The results of the study demonstrate that it was the factory sport circles that led to professional sports and that during the period under review, effective mechanisms were developed to attract workers of different genders and ages to active physical education and sports. At the same time, the actors involved in the organization and implementation of this work pursued different goals — the unity of the labor collective, the distraction of young people from deviant leisure practices, the proletarization of sports, its use for educational and propaganda work, etc.