Politicization of Sport: Using Punishments as a Lesson
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).
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