"With Sport for Democracy" Poster, 1952
1 2016-11-08T11:15:51-08:00 Johanna Mellis 337c8aa15975253503108a6ba2daff82d0111139 12595 1 This type of poster, specifically how it tied sport with the state as a people's democracy, was typical of socialist propaganda. plain 2016-11-08T11:15:51-08:00 20141016 074250 20141016 074250 Johanna Mellis 337c8aa15975253503108a6ba2daff82d0111139This page is referenced by:
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Hungarian Sport in the Cold War
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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. -
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Introduction
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This book uses specific cases in which athletes received punishments to examine the evolving relationship between athletes and the sport leadership (and to some extent, with the socialist state as well) between 1948-1989. Most of the scholarship on the elite sport systems in the Eastern Bloc countries focuses on the victim-repressor narrative based on the East German case.[1] The German Democratic Republic’s development of a state-controlled, secret police-enforced doping program was certainly brutal in its intent to ensure their athletes’ sport success. But GDR sport system cannot be used to explain the elite sport systems as a whole.[2]
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. -
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Politicization of Sport: Using Punishments as a Lesson
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Sport leaders worked hard to thoroughly politicize sport, under the close guise of the top members of the Hungarian Communist Party.[1] They struggled to motivate athletes to remain in the country (not defect) and bring home success on the playing field. In the 1950s, their “motivational tactics” consisted mainly of using harsh punishments, as depicted in the case of Sándor Szűcs in 1951. The 1956 Revolution influenced sport leaders to soften their strategy towards athletes, and began using more rewards with athletes to obtain their sport diplomacy goals. I call the combination of ever-changing rewards and punishments a “carrot-and-stick” game that sport leaders and athletes participated in. Sport leaders did not truly want to punish athletes harshly – their end goal was to produce results for their own bosses, the top Party leaders. They thus used punishments, particularly in the 1950s, as lessons to teach other athletes to avoid specific kinds of behavior.[1] For more specifics on this, see Katalin Szikora, “Sport and the Olympic Movement in Hungary (1945-1989), in The Shadow of Totalitarianism: Sport and the Olympic Movement in the ‘Visegrád Countries’ 1945-1989, edited by Marek Waic, Prague: Charles University, 2015, 131-195; and Balász Rigó, „Egészpályás letámadás Kommunista hatalomátvétel a magyar sportban (1945-1948),” (Overhead Pressing in the Communist takeover of Hungarian Sport, 1945-1948).