Formation of soviet sports diplomacy: structures and practices

Abstract

The article is devoted to the formation of a new foreign policy practice - sports diplomacy - in the USSR in the 1920s. The key documents that established the order of interaction of sections within the Red Sports International, as well as Soviet athletes with the external environment, are analyzed. These resolutions clearly reflected the contradictions in the accents of the activities of the RSI and the SCPC: the aspiration for mainly propaganda work and the consolidation of the labor movement collided with the desire to raise the competitive level of Soviet sports. Despite these contradictions, in the 1920s it was possible to unify the practice of international work-sports interaction, to make it systematic. The evolution of working methods has been studied: both competitive forms of interaction and non-competitive practices - patronage and socialist competition. It is shown that the tools of sports diplomacy of the USSR in the first decade of its existence were not static, it changed in accordance with new tasks and challenges - from overcoming foreign policy isolation to strengthening the internal structure of the movement and the formation of self-defense squads by foreign sports clubs. The circle of interaction of the RSI and the SCPC with supranational organizations and Soviet institutions of power is defined. Intensive ties with the CEC, the PCFA and the Soviet embassies, which provided financial support, accelerated visa issuance, as well as advisory assistance, indicate a great attention to foreign policy sports contacts of the highest state bodies of the USSR. The conclusion is made about the formation of a systematic and regular practice of sports diplomacy of the Soviet state since the early 1920s.