DOSAAF (), full name ''Volunteer Society for the Assistance to the Army, Aviation, and Navy'' (), was a

paramilitary A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934. Overview Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...

sport organization in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

that was concerned mainly with weapons,

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

s and

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

. The society was established in 1927 as OSOAVIAKhIM and from 1951 to 1991 carried the name of DOSAAF. The society was preserved in some post-Soviet Republics, such as

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

, but they may use a different name. In Russia. it was reformed in December 1991 as the Russian Defense Sports-Technical Organization (ROSTO; ). In December 2009, ROSTO was renamed DOSAAF of Russia."В России возродили ДОСААФ"
/ref> For Belarus, see DOSAAF (Belarus). The stated goal of the society was "patriotic upbringing of the population and preparation of it to the defense of the Motherland." Among the means to achieve that was the development of paramilitary sports. Initially, an important goal was financial support of the Soviet Armed Forces. At the same time, ordinary sports were supported within the framework of DOSAAF facilities such as sports halls, stadiums, swimming pools, gymnasiums and others.

History

OSOAVIAKhIM

The precursor of DOSAAF was the OSOAVIAKhIM (; full name: , 'Union of Societies of Assistance to Defense and Aviation-Chemical Construction of the USSR') created on 27 January 1927 by merging the ''Society of Assistance to Defense'' (), ''Society of Friends of the Air Force'' () and ''Society of Friends of Chemical Defense and the Chemical Industry'' (). Osoaviahim-1 aerostat 02

The goal of the society was preparation of reserves for armed forces. It soon became a powerful

with its own airfields, radio clubs, parachuting towers, and firing ranges. It became prestigious and romantic among Soviet youth to earn badges such as " Voroshilov sharpshooter" (), "Voroshilov horse rider" () and "Distinguished Parachute Jumper". OSOAVIAKhIM supported a number of professional

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

programs for airplanes, glider, airships and stratospheric balloons, some of which were later taken over by the

Soviet Air Forces The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Sovie ...

. In 1934, the organisation carried out the record-setting mission of the high-altitude

balloon A balloon is a flexible membrane bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. For special purposes, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), ...

'' Osoaviakhim-1''. Also in the 1930s,

Sergey Korolev Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (14 January 1966) was the lead Soviet Aerospace engineering, rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. He invented the R-7 Sem ...

's rocket research organization, GIRD, and Oleg Antonov's glider project, among other efforts, were part of the OSOAVIAKhIM.

Post-World War II

In March 1948, OSOAVIAKhIM was reorganized into three separate societies: ''The Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Army'' (), ''The Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Air Force'' () and ''The Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Navy'' (). On 20 August 1951 they were re-merged as a single society, DOSAAF.

References

External links

{{authority control Soviet state institutions Military of the Soviet Union Civic and political organizations based in the Soviet Union Military education and training in the Soviet Union 1927 establishments in the Soviet Union Organizations disestablished in 1991 Sport societies in the Soviet Union Recipients of the Order of Lenin Military units and formations awarded the Order of the Red Banner DOSAAF

History

OSOAVIAKhIM

Post-World War II

See also

References

Further reading

External links