Posted on 03/28/2014 4:43:44 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Drop, Squat, Thrust: Putin Revives Soviet-Era Fitness Program: If you could turn back the hands of time, what would you wish for?
For Russian President Vladimir Putin, it seems to be to return to the days of mass physical fitness. Not just of Physical Education training in schools -- which already exists in Russia -- but of mass calisthenics in stadiums, mass parades of athletes through Moscow's Red Square, and fluttering banners with slogans urging 'Everyone to the Starting Line!'
On March 24, Putin, a well-known fitness buff, signed an executive order to bring it all back. He ordered the revival of a Stalin-era fitness program from the 1930s called "Ready for Labor and Defense" or "GTO" by its Russian initials.
The state-sponsored program, which mixed fitness, health, and patriotism, had been moribund since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when it fell victim to Russians' suddenly greater freedoms of choice.
Now, GTO is due to start in September across the country. How it will look in its modern incarnation remains to be seen. But if it is anything like before, it will be a sight more reminiscent of the bygone days of the U.S.S.R., or Maoist China, than anything around in the world today.
WATCH: Soviet-Era Fitness Programs (In Russian)
Back in the U.S.S.R., people of all ages were expected to participate in GTO. If you were 16 to 18 years old, you were enlisted in your high school's "Strength and Courage" program, which included elements of military basic training.
Not only did you run, swim, and do cross-country skiing, depending on the season, you also ran obstacle courses and practiced grenade-throwing minus grenades. Sometimes there was rifle practice, too.
Older people got off lightly but not completely. Men between the ages of 40 to 60 and women from 35 to 55 were expected to take part in the "Vigor and Health" program run by the GTO's local branch.
Driving the whole program was the quest for medals and glory amid huge pomp and ceremony. In its heyday, the GTO sponsored annual championships in towns and cities across the Soviet Union, with 37 million people taking part in 1975.
The winners were feted on television and lionized in the state press.
But the lock-step nature of the parades and stadium events, with uniformed young people forming a giant Soviet star on the playing field, revealed that there was always more to the games than just sports.
The slogan of the GTO was "Your Motherland Calls for You to Be Ready for Work and Defense" and the program helped create the sense that the country was in a state of perpetual mobilization throughout the Cold War.
In signing his decree on March 23, Putin did not specify why he wanted to bring back the GTO in its Soviet-era form, complete with the pomp and parades. He only said his government had been considering "how to attract the vast majority of our citizens to take part in regular physical training" and that "reviving the GTO would "pay homage to our national historical traditions."
Putin, a devoted sportsman, is reported to have first floated the idea of reviving the GTO a year ago. He said the program will be split into 11 different age groups, beginning with the age of six, and he personally will receive a report each year on his new initiative's progress.
A few years ago he lamented the fall of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century".
This year he has retaken Crimea, made a lot of bluster about the return of Russian authority on the global stage, and is now reinstituting Stalin's old athletics program for the masses.
No, but a piece or two here and there might improve his odds in saving Mother Russia from death
Moochelle approves...
There is only one way to hold together an empire composed of disparate and unequal, inhomogeneous groups; fear. Putin must use force an this is not the eighteenth or nineteenth century where reports of atrocities are dulled by time and distance. Each old lady and child shot will reverberate around the world. What Putin imagines will be one happy reunited family will seem like a prison camp. This process may take years, it may take Putin’s passing. But another Gorbachev and another Reagan will come along and the wall will be torn down again. This new empire will set Russia back another fifty years.
Crimea is a sop to Russian nationalists; the revival of GTO is a sop to the Communists. Putin finds a way to please every one and that’s the hallmark of a truly consummate politician.
“No, but a piece or two here and there might improve his odds in saving Mother Russia from death”
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I agree. He certainly does not intend to re-enslave central Europe. He will limit his lust to the original USSR.
Russia itself is a multinational and multiethnic state. What makes it work is the Russians who are at the core of it. Such an unlikely state as Russia with over 100 nationalities within its borders could never work without the Russians keeping the peace.
Little GTO, you’re really lookin’ fine
Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389
Listen to her tachin’ up now,
Listen to her why-ee-eye-ine
C’mon and turn it on,
Wind it up, blow it out GTO
The real question is what is the geopolitical strategy behind the Obama/Soros/sodomite EU instigated and financed overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine? It certainly wasn't out of the kindness of their hearts.
And the second question is what the hell did people expect Russia's response to the overthrow of their MOST important strategic ally and neighbor that contains its MOST important naval base by people who constantly bad mouth Russia to be? Did they expect Putin to send a congratulatory fruit basket?
Putin didn’t start this conflict. Those who overthrew the Ukrainian government did. He’s just taking advantage of an opportunity. If he didn’t it probably wouldn’t have gone well at home. I expect he’ll pick off the low hanging fruit then stop.
You are correct.
Time is Mother Russia’s ally
I do think he wants to redraw the old Soviet borders, but I don’t think he is a communist. I think he is more of a Tsar. I guess we will find out as he continues to consolidate power.
He and his oligarch supporters enjoy their wealth too much to return to communism. I think he’s more interested in restoring Tsarist Russia than the old USSR, however.
Putin never starts a conflict. Never, ever.
At the very least, he doesn’t start them out in the open.
He doesn’t want to just “re-create” it, he wants to make it a world wide empire.
“Such an unlikely state as Russia with over 100 nationalities within its borders could never work without the Russians keeping the peace.”
According to communist doctrine, the state is an apparatus for violence. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the application of violence has been discrete and limited. Pen an unflattering article about Putin and become well enough known that Putin sees you as a danger and you’ll die of some unlikely cause. To date Putin’s application of violence has been very little. But envision those 100 nationalities as guitar strings. The violence used against them results in the tightening of those strings. Now, head onto the path of empire where outside forces make Putin apply more violence. Those 100 nationalities will be as suppressed by the state as those outside forces attempting to make them violent in “the cause.” As the state tightens the strings, plucking just one will make them all vibrate. Eventually, they may destroy the state and balkanize it.
Everything for the control of the new empire and the potential of tearing it apart depend on two essential mechanisms. Phone communications and the internet. By releasing control of the internet the US has made it possible for countries to dampen down descent. (Doubtless, that was Obama’s purpose as he has backed or encouraged every tin-pot dictatorship or Islamic movement in the world during his tenure.)
Nope, not the Soviet Empire, the Russian Empire. Several weeks after proposing in a post here at FR that the correct historical analogue for Putin is not Stalin, but Tsar Nicholas I, I learned, reading another thread here, that Putin has a large portrait of Nicholas I prominently displayed in the antechamber of his office.
Culturally, pre-WWII Germans and Russians much in common, before they got into a fight with each other.
...had much in common, even.
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