Voluntary Sports Societies of The Soviet Union - Creation

Creation

The system of the Volunteer Sports Societies has arisen out of the established sports societies of the Russian Empire. Already from the end of 17th century started to form a system of military-fitness training in the Russian Imperial Army, while in the military and selected civilian educational institutions were introduced participation in complexes of fitness exercises such as gymnastics, shooting, fencing, and so on.

Already in the first half of 19th century there appeared sports schools, clubs, societies (sailing and rowing, fencing, swimming, ice skating, cycling, and others) in Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and other cities of the Russian Empire. Among the first societies were the yacht clubs of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. Along with the creation of the sport societies there started to be conducted official sports competitions. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia states that usually those sports clubs and unions were chartered and financed by representatives of bourgeoisie and nobility and the access to them for students and working youth "was extremely limited". At the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries there appeared workers' sports organizations across the cities of the Russian Empire. A prominent role in the development of the Russian sport has played the "Petersburg's Circle of Sports Fans" (established in 1889), the "Russian Gymnastics Society" (1882, Moscow), the "Petersburg Society of Skating Fans" (1877), the "Circle of Athletic Fans" (1885, Petersburg), and others.

In 1896 the founder of scientific system of the fitness education, Pyotr Lesgaft (1837–1909), opened in Petersburg the courses of educators and leaders of physical education that eventually became a prototype of the higher learning institutions in physical education created in the Soviet Union and abroad. In the beginning of the 20th century were established All-Russian unions on sports,and organized the first championships. In 1913 the First Russian Olympics took place in Kiev where participated some 600 people including females. The Second Russian Olympics were conducted next year (1914) in Riga involving over 1,000 participants. The program of those Olympics consisted of light athletics, gymnastics, fencing, association football, tennis, heavy athletics, swimming, rowing, sailing, modern pentathlon, shooting, equestrian, and cycling.

The Russian Empire was among the 12 countries, representatives of which, at the 1894 international congress in Paris, adopted the decision of the Olympic revival and established the International Olympic Committee. Sportsmen of the Russian Empire participated in the 1908 Olympics (5 members) and the 1912 Olympics (174 members). In 1914 in the Russian Empire were 1,200 sports unions involving some 45,000 participants out of some 332 cities and other settlements. After the October Revolution of late 1917 the state governing of the workers' physical training was assigned in 1918 to the Main Department of Vsevobuch along with which was created in 1920 the Supreme Council of Fitness Culture (VSFK). In 1923 such VSFK were created for every Executive Committee of each Soviet region. In 1936 the council was reformed into the All-Union committee for fitness culture and sports affairs for the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR

VSS Spartak, the first of the future Union-wide national sports societies, was created in 1935. The society united the workers of local industries, communal economy, culture, automobile transportation, civil aviation, and others. In the following years numerous other sport societies were created throughout the Soviet Union. One societies were close associated with one industry others in combination of several. For example, athletes from factory schools and vocational schools were united into VSS Trudovye Rezervy in 1943. The formation of the kernel of the system was finished in the 1950s, when village VSS were established in all 15 Soviet republics (then at 16 with the addition of the Karelo-Finnish SSR until 1956).