Chess Sport in the First Years of Soviet Power: From Amateur Hobbies to the Organized Movement of Intellectuals

Chess as a special kind of intellectual activity and sport, which received an additional impetus for development in the conditions of Soviet reality, became one of the ways of forming a new type of society. Since the first years of Soviet power, the state's support for the mass development of chess sports was aimed at the formation of creative and analytical abilities of citizens who at the same time possessed certain social qualities that demonstrated the intellectual superiority of the Soviet person. The article considers chess sport is considered as a historical and cultural phenomenon of Soviet reality. The peculiarities of the chess structure organization, its internal mechanisms, functioning and development of chess institutions in new historical conditions are revealed. There is the characteristic of the chess`s role in the formation of the Soviet intellectual social environment. Based on the cause-and-effect relationships` identification of the process of the formation of chess sport as one of the institutions of the spiritual life of society, an assessment of its development in the first years of Soviet power is given.

chess history, intellectual sports, Russian chess school, sports and politics