Introduction
Analyzing episodes in which athletes got punished during specific moments in socialist Hungary highlights the dynamism that characterized the elite sport system in socialist Hungary. Commonly referred to as the “happiest barrack in the socialist camp,” Hungarian athletes were not always at the complete mercy of ruthless sport leaders. The 1956 Revolution played a major role in influencing sport leaders to alter their tactics, and soften their approach towards athletes. The various cases displayed here show that a surprising amount of flexibility existed within sport leaders’ priorities and policies, and how by 1957 Hungarian athletes began reaping the benefits of those changes.
[1] Steven Ungerleider’s work is the best example of the works that take a moralistic approach to studying the GDR’s doping regime. It does contain excellent information about the control that the Stasi exerted and how it was organized and implemented. Steven Ungerleider, Faust’s Gold: Inside the East German Doping Machine, Thomas Dunne Books, 2001.
[2] In the last five years, two excellent works have been published that depict the broader milieu of elite sport in East Germany. See Mike Dennis and Jonathan Grix, Sport Under Communism: Behind the East German ‘Miracle,’ Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013; and Alan McDougall, The People’s Game: Football, State and Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
