The International Association of Red Sports and Gymnastics Associations, commonly known as Red Sport International (RSI) or Sportintern was a
Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
-supported international sports organization established in July 1921. The RSI was established in an effort to form a rival organization to already existing
"bourgeois" and
social democratic
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...
international sporting groups. The RSI was part of a
physical culture
Physical culture, also known as Body culture, is a health and strength training movement that originated during the 19th century in Germany, the UK and the US.
Origins
The physical culture movement in the United States during the 19th century ...
movement in
Soviet Russia
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
linked to the physical training of young people prior to their enlistment in the military. The RSI held 3 summer games and 1 winter games called "
Spartakiad
The Spartakiad (or Spartakiade) was an international sports event that was sponsored by the Soviet Union. Five international Spartakiades were held from 1928 to 1937. Later Spartakiads were organized as national sport events of the Eastern Bloc ...
" in competition with the
Olympic games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
of the
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
before being dissolved in 1937.
Organizational history
Background
The notion of a separate
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
national athletic federation emerged first in Germany during the decade of the 1890s, when a
Workers Gymnastics Association was established by activists in the
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
movement in opposition to the
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
German Gymnastics Society ''(Turnen).''
[James Riordan and Arnd Krüger, ''The International Politics of Sport in the Twentieth Century.'' London: Routledge, 1999; pg. 107.] Other "proletarian" sports organizations emerged soon thereafter in that country, including the Solidarity Worker Cycling Club, the Friends of Nature Rambling Association, the Worker Swimming Association, the Free Sailing Association, and the
Worker Track and Field Athletics Association
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
, among others.
By the time of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the German proletarian sports movement included more than 350,000 participants.
Following the bloodbath of World War I, the German workers' sports movement began to reemerge, with a new competitive orientation beginning to take the place of individualistic club activities.
The international
social democratic
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...
movement also experienced a rebirth after its connections had been severed by war. In 1920 the social democrats established an International Association for Sports and Physical Culture, echoing its efforts in the pre-war period.
This organization was rechristened as the
Socialist Workers' Sport International
Socialist Workers' Sport International (german: Sozialistische Arbeitersport Internationale, SASI) was an international socialist sporting organisation, based in Lucerne. It was founded in 1920, and consisted of six national federations (with a co ...
(SWSI) in 1925.
In the aftermath of the
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
the international socialist movement divided into two antagonistic camps, socialist and
communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
— a division exacerbated with the establishment of the
Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
(Comintern) in 1919. Parallel political organizations sprung up in every country and a state of bitter enmity prevailed.
Establishment
![Podvoisky 1903](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Podvoisky_1903.jpg)
The idea of a rival Red Sport International (RSI) was the inspiration of
Nikolai Podvoisky
Nikolai Ilyich Podvoisky (russian: Николай Ильич Подвойский; February 16 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S_February_4.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O.S_February_4">Old_Style_and_New_S ...
, who at the
2nd World Congress of the Comintern
The 2nd World Congress of the Communist International was a gathering of approximately 220 voting and non-voting representatives of Communist and revolutionary socialist political parties from around the world, held in Petrograd and Moscow from J ...
in the summer of 1920 discussed with a number of delegates from around the world the idea of establishing an organization to coordinate the physical training of youth.
[E.H. Carr, ''A History of Soviet Russia: Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926: Volume 3, Part 2.'' London: Macmillan, 1964; pg. 957.] Podvoisky, a military specialist in charge of Soviet Russia's military training organization, believed systematic physical training to be beneficial for the needs of the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
for healthy and fit youth in its ranks.
An international sports organization was also seen as a potential ideological counterweight to the
Olympic games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
of the "
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
"
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
as well as the activities of the rival International Association for Sports and Physical Culture of the socialists.
[Carr, ''Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926,'' vol. 3, pt. 2, pg. 958.]
Podvoisky gathered interested delegates who were already in Moscow for the Comintern Congress and the group constituted itself a founding conference for an international sports organization.
It is worthy of emphasis that the Comintern did not itself directly found the Red Sport International, the group being established through independent initiative and the Comintern being preoccupied with other affairs. The group issued a public manifesto declaring the establishment of a Red Sport International and elected a governing Executive Committee, consisting of representatives from Soviet Russia, Germany,
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
, France, Sweden, Italy, and
Alsace-Lorraine.
Podvoisky was elected President of the new organization.
The establishment of an international sports organization in Soviet Russia in 1921 was not without its utopian elements, since no official Soviet sport organizations existed in famine stricken post-civil war Soviet Russia at that time. Germany, on the other hand, had a well-developed workers' sport movement at this time.
Consequently, Sportintern from its outset maintained a strong German flavor and it was there in the city of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
that the 2nd Conference of the organization was held in July 1922.
The only national "proletarian" sports organization to join the German group at that early date was the
Czechoslovak Federation of Workers' Gymnastic Leagues
Czechoslovak may refer to:
*A demonym or adjective pertaining to Czechoslovakia (1918–93)
**First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–38)
**Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–39)
**Third Czechoslovak Republic (1948–60)
**Fourth Czechoslovak Repub ...
, said to represent 100,000 athletes.
The Comintern moved closer to the fledgling Sportintern in November 1922 when, in conjunction with the
4th World Congress, the governing
Executive Committee of the Communist International
The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI (Russian acronym ИККИ), was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body. The ECCI was established by the Foundin ...
decided to name a representative to the "independent" proletarian sport organization.
The
Communist International of Youth (KIM) did not take action until the meeting of its governing Bureau in Moscow in July 1923, when it issued a general recommendation of support for the Sportintern and the national sports organizations affiliated to it as a useful "proletarian class instrument."
[Carr, ''Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926,'' vol. 3, pt. 2, pg. 960.] It did not, however, delve into the contentious issue of in what manner and to what extent these two international bodies should be related.
The governing Executive Committee of Sportintern met in Moscow in February 1923 and decided to establish a satellite bureau of the organization in Berlin, with a view to increasing participation among Western European workers' sports organizations. The maneuver proved successful in helping to build the organization, triggering a split of the French Workers Sports Federation later that year and the affiliation of 80% of its membership with the Red Sport International.
[Carr, ''Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926,'' vol. 3, pt. 2, pg. 961.] The RSI's increased place in the public eye motivated the governing body of the rival international socialist sports authority, meeting in
Zurich in August 1923, to discuss issuing an invitation to Sportintern to help organize a joint "Workers' Olympiad" — a proposal which was narrowly defeated, despite indications that a majority of individual members of the socialist organization favored joint participation.
End of autonomy
In October 1924 the Red Sport International held its 3rd Congress in Moscow.
[Carr, ''Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926,'' vol. 3, pt. 2, pg. 963.] At this time the organization decided to enlarge its governing Executive Committee to include four members of the executive committee of the Communist International of Youth — an organization which saw the national affiliates of Sportintern as comprised overwhelmingly of young workers and sought to insert its influence in the organization.
As the membership of Sportintern was formally "open to all proletarian elements which recognize the class struggle" it was not an explicitly communist organization, a situation which the KIM saw as a significant shortcoming.
The RSI was a large and growing organization in this interval, with some 2 million affiliated members in the Soviet Union, joined by others sections in Germany, Czechoslovakia, France, Norway, Italy, Finland, Switzerland, the United States,
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
, Bulgaria, and
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
. As the size of the organization grew, so, too, did pressure to bring the organization's
ideological
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...
character under tighter centralized Communist Party control.
Nikolai Podvoisky was himself a voice for such an insertion of such ideological hegemony, declaring in a lengthy speech to the
5th Enlarged Plenum of the Comintern
Fifth is the ordinal form of the number five.
Fifth or The Fifth may refer to:
* Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as in the expression "pleading the Fifth"
* Fifth column, a political term
* Fifth disease, a contagious rash that ...
, held in the spring of 1925, that Sportintern should henceforth adopt as its motto:
"Convert sport and gymnastics into a weapon of the class revolutionary struggle, concentrate the attention of workers and peasants on sport and gymnastics as one of the best instruments, methods, and weapons for their class organization and struggle."
At the same time the international communist movement moved to further politicize the RSI, efforts were made to make political hay over the refusal of the Socialist Workers' Sport International to conduct joint activities, such as its decision to bar the Red Sport International from participation at the July 1925 "Workers' Olympiad" held in Frankfurt under its auspices.
[Carr, ''Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926,'' vol. 3, pt. 2, pg. 965.]
It was in this period, 1924 to 1925, that the Red Sport International effectively became an auxiliary of the Communist International. This control was effected by the subordinate youth section of the Comintern, the Communist International of Youth, although the Comintern reserved for itself ultimate authority to decide issues of great importance.
[Gounot, "Sport or Political Organization?" pg. 27.] As the Comintern was itself in the process of being absorbed as an instrument of Soviet foreign policy in this interval, the RSI likewise gradually lost its ability to function independently as an international entity.
In the words of French sports historian André Gounot:
"...The RSI's dependence on the Comintern was accompanied, almost inevitably, by the Soviet section's dominance within the RSI. The interests of the Soviet Union and Soviet sport were decisive factors in the RSI's decisions and actions — even if, as was frequently the case, they were incompatible with those of European worker sport."
The last International Congress of the Red Sport International came in 1928 and was marked by no serious discussion of contemporary sporting issues.
[Gounot, "Sport or Political Organization?" pg. 28.] Instead the 1928 gathering consisted of a mechanical attempt to apply the Comintern's ultra-radical
Third Period
The Third Period is an ideological concept adopted by the Communist International (Comintern) at its Sixth World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928. It set policy until reversed when the Nazis took over Germany in 1933.
The Comint ...
slogan of "Class versus Class" and its corollary theory of
social fascism
Social fascism (also socio-fascism) was a theory that was supported by the Communist International (Comintern) and affiliated communist parties in the early 1930s that held that social democracy was a variant of fascism because it stood in the way ...
to world sport — splitting the fissure between the two camps of the European workers' sport movement wider than ever.
Social composition
Membership of the various national sections of the Red Sport International was by no means monolithic. According to the RSI's own study of the issue, members of the organizations were predominantly male, but hailed from a variety of communist, socialist,
syndicalist
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of pr ...
, and
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
tendencies, including many of whom who were members of no party.
[''Internationaler Arbeitersport: Zeitschrift für Fragen der internationalen revolutionären Arbeitersportbewegung.'' Aug. 1931, pg. 303. Quoted in Gounot, "Sport or Political Organization?" pg. 29.] Although many of these were of the working class, also included were white collar employees, students, and government workers.
Membership records of the French section, for example, indicate that approximately 80% of participants were from the working class, with the remaining 20% members of other social groups.
No details exist for the exact Communist Party membership of any national section of the RSI, although in the considered opinion of a leading historian on the topic, "it is safe to assume that this group represented a minority of the whole membership of each section."
[Gounot, "Sport or Political Organization?" pg. 29.] The Czechoslovakian federation, thought to include the largest Communist Party contingent from outside the USSR, is believed to have included something in the range of 20 to 30% who were members of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Cominte ...
.
The fact that members of other parties or no parties participated in the national sections of the Red Sport International is testimony to the limited impact that RSI programmatic rhetoric had upon grassroots participants.
It was rather the fun and excitement of training and competition that bound together local groups and their national units more than ideological proclivities.
The difference in perception of the organization between its rank-and-file participants and the Moscow dominated leadership of the organization has led one scholar to conclude that the RSI was a "split organization, living in two universes," bureaucratic in political discourse but remaining well within the less intense social democratic workers' sports tradition at the individual club level.
[Gounot, "Sport or Political Organization?" pg. 35.] In this view politics was merely a piece of a broader participatory sports movement.
International competitions
The international workers' sports organizations of the socialist and communist movements did not necessarily object to some of the most noble goals of the International Olympic Committee (IOC),
[Riordan and Krüger, ''The International Politics of Sport in the Twentieth Century,'' pg. 109.] but they did each share fundamental reservations about the modern Olympic games that were the inspiration of
, a hereditary French nobleman.
[Christopher R. Hill, ''Olympic Politics: Athens to Atlanta, 1896-1996.'' Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1996; pg. 5.] First and foremost, the Olympics of the IOC stressed competition between nations — regarded by the radicals as a manifestation of national
chauvinism
Chauvinism is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior. It can be described as a form of extreme patriotis ...
.
Rather than the accentuation of national rivalry and patriotic feeling, international competition should focus on the actual athletic effort in a setting designed to build the ethic of
internationalism
Internationalism may refer to:
* Cosmopolitanism, the view that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality as opposed to communitarianism, patriotism and nationalism
* International Style, a major architectur ...
, both the socialists and communists agreed.
The IOC games also were based upon rigid entrance standards, while the international festivals of the worker athletic movement instead attempted to build mass participation through pageantry, artistic and cultural activities, and unifying political presentations.
Moreover, the sort of athletes dominating the IOC games were objectionable to the radicals on the basis of
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
, dominated as they were by the privileged children of the rural aristocracy and the bourgeoisie.
Such international competitions should be open to the participation of less privileged national and social groups, without distinction to race or creed, in the view of the radical sports organizations.
Therefore, the Red Sport International and its socialist rival, the organization emerging as the Socialist Workers' Sport International, conducted a series of their own workers' sports festivals in distinction to and competition with the Olympiads of the IOC. Four such events (called Spartakiads in honor of the heroic slave leader,
Spartacus
Spartacus ( el, Σπάρτακος '; la, Spartacus; c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising ...
) were sponsored by the RSI. Two of these were held in 1928, and one each in 1931 and 1937.
While a major national workers' sport festival had already been held in Czechoslovakia in 1921, it was the socialist organization in 1925 that conducted the first pair of Workers' Olympics events — Summer Games in Frankfurt attracting 150,000 spectators and competitors from 19 country, and Winter Games in Schreiberhau (today's
Szklarska Poręba
Szklarska Poręba (german: Schreiberhau) is a town in Jelenia Góra County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. The town has a population of around 6,500. It is a popular ski resort.
An important regional and national centre fo ...
, Poland), attended by athletes from 12 countries.
[Riordan and Krüger, ''The International Politics of Sport in the Twentieth Century,'' pg. 110.] No national flags or anthems graced the closing or opening ceremonies, replaced instead by universal use of the
red flag and singing of "
The Internationale
"The Internationale" (french: "L'Internationale", italic=no, ) is an international anthem used by various communist and socialist groups; currently, it serves as the official anthem of the Communist Party of China. It has been a standard of th ...
."
"Soviet and other communist athletes were excluded from these games, however, and there was therefore little actual unity of the workers' sports movement for all the universalist pageantry employed.
From the middle 1930s the political line of the world communist movement changed. The so-called
Popular Front
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".
More generally, it is "a coalition ...
against the threat of
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
rendered cooperation with socialists and others through unified workers' athletic festivals not only a possibility but the tactical order of the day. Plans were laid for a so-called 3rd Workers' Olympiad to be held in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
,
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...
, Spain in June 1936, under joint auspices of the RSI and the SWSI. The time and place proved inauspicious, however, coinciding with outbreak of hostilities in the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
.
[Riordan and Krüger, ''The International Politics of Sport in the Twentieth Century,'' pg. 113.] This forced postponement of the event, which was rescheduled for the next summer in
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, , Belgium.
The 3rd Workers' Olympiad proved to be less successful than previous endeavors, but it still managed to attract 27,000 participating athletes, and put 50,000 people in the stadium for the final day of competition.
An estimated 200,000 people turned out for the traditional closing parade through the city.
Dissolution
With the Soviet Union becoming immersed in the first months of 1937 in a massive and
xenophobic
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
secret police campaign against perceived underground
espionage networks remembered as the
Great Terror
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
, the Red Sport International was summarily dissolved by the Comintern in April of that year.
List of Spartakiads
Gatherings of the RSI
:
''Source:'' Gounot, "Sport or Political Organization?" pg. 28.
See also
*
Socialist Workers' Sport International
Socialist Workers' Sport International (german: Sozialistische Arbeitersport Internationale, SASI) was an international socialist sporting organisation, based in Lucerne. It was founded in 1920, and consisted of six national federations (with a co ...
*
Spartakiad
The Spartakiad (or Spartakiade) was an international sports event that was sponsored by the Soviet Union. Five international Spartakiades were held from 1928 to 1937. Later Spartakiads were organized as national sport events of the Eastern Bloc ...
Footnotes
Further reading
* Pierre Arnaud and James Riordan, ''Sport and International Politics: The Impact of Fascism and Communism on Sport.'' Taylor & Francis, 1998.
* Barbara Keys, "Soviet Sport and Transnational Mass Culture in the 1930s," ''Journal of Contemporary History,'' Vol. 38, No. 3, (July 2003), pp. 413–434.
* Nikolai Podvoisky, (article on the establishment of RSI), ''Pravda,'' October 15, 1924.
* James Riordan, ''Sport, Politics, and Communism.'' Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1991.
* David Alexander Steinberg, ''Sport under Red Flags: The Relations between the Red Sport International and the Socialist Workers' Sport International, 1920-1939.'' PhD dissertation. University of Wisconsin — Madison, 1979.
* David A. Steinberg, "The Worker Sports Internationals, 1920-28," ''Journal of Contemporary History,'' vol. 13, no. 2 (April 1978), pp. 233–251.
* Robert Wheeler
"Organized Sport and Organized Labor: The Workers' Sports Movement,"''Journal of Contemporary History,'' vol. 13, no. 2 (April 1978), pp. 191–210.
* (Proceedings of the July 1921 Conference), ''Internationale Jugend-Korrespondenz,'' No. 7 (April 1, 1922), pg. 11.
External links
Red Sport Internationalat sport-history.ru. from Encyclopedic dictionary on physical culture and sports. Volume 2. Chief editor G.I.Kukushkin. Moscow, "
Fizkultura i sport
Fizkultura i sport (russian: Физкультура и спорт, lit. trans.: ''Physical Culture and Sports'') is a Russian publisher of sports books and magazines. It was established in 1923 in the USSR. Its logo depicts the famous sculpture ''D ...
", 1962. page 388 (Энциклопедический словарь по физической культуре и спорту. Том 2. Гл. ред.- Г. И. Кукушкин. М., 'Физкультура и спорт', 1962. 388 с.)
{{Authority control