The Formation of a Sports Movement in the Saratov Region in the 1920s

The Soviet sport of high achievements, the success of Soviet athletes at international competitions and Olympiads was a natural result of the state policy of the sports movement. The Soviet government, based on the task of defending the Fatherland in the context of the civil war (Universal Education), for the first time in the history of Russia considers sports issues as a state policy, solving the tasks of educating a healthy generation along with issues of a political and economic nature. The specifics of Soviet policy consisted in the demand for the new government to embody and implement the decisions of the central government in the practices of the local Bolsheviks. Based on socio-cultural and systematic analysis, the author examines the issues of the origin of the Saratov sports movement in the 1920s. In the Saratov Region, the development of the sports movement was carried out not only by the local General Education, but also by local sports related to the sports traditions of the imperial period, and public (Russian Communist Youth Union, Proletkult) organizations. Despite the difficulties experienced by the Saratov Bolsheviks regarding the development of the sports movement in the Saratov Region, the result was not long in coming and was associated with the achievements of Saratov athletes at competitions of various levels.