Hungarian Sport in the Cold War
Throughout the period of socialist rule, leaders used success on the international sport stage as a tool of soft diplomacy to prove the superiority of socialism over the capitalist West. They viewed sport as a symbolic battlefield for what scholars call the “cultural” Cold War.[1] The picture above of soccer legend Ferenc Puskás on the top spot of the podium at the 1952 Olympics was a perfect example of this. The belief that sport victories demonstrated the strength and viability of one’s political system for citizens at home and abroad was widespread already in the interwar period.[2] The socialist states that emerged after 1945, however, pursued this idea with more vigor and state resources than most. Their use of the international sport community for sport diplomacy purposes did not end there. Hungarian sport leaders wanted to capitalize on the opportunities provided by IOC membership to show a softer, more diplomatic side of their political system; by doing so, they aimed to gradually institute favorable, pro-socialist policies within the context of the hardening of Cold War lines. Hungarian sport was enormously successful in the 1950s, interestingly during the harshest period of socialist rule between 1948-1989.
In the above interview clip, former 1980 Olympic pentathlete and current director of Adidas Hungary Attila Császári explains his theory of why the socialist governments in Eastern Europe prioritized elite sport.
[1] David Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy During the Cold War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 1.
[2] Barbara Keys shows that how in the 1930s the importance of international sport organizations like the IOC and FIFA skyrocketed, specifically with the rise of Nazi Germany and within the Soviet Union’s top Party leadership. Barbara Keys, Globalizing Sport: National Rivalry and International Community in the 1930s, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.
