doi:10.18503/2658-3186-2026-10-2-39-44
Abstract. This article analyzes the development of physical culture and sports in Chelyabinsk during the immediate post-war years (1945–1947). Basing on administrative documentation and materials from the local periodical press, the article examines the process of restoring sports life in a major industrial center that served as one of the country's primary arsenals during the war. Particular attention is paid to the role of the military department of the Chelyabinsk City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) [VKP(b)] as a coordinating and controlling body in the sphere of physical education and sports training. The article demonstrates how, through the system of voluntary sports societies, the organization of trade union and Komsomol cross-country races, Spartakiads, and the promotion of the GTO (Ready for Labour and Defence) standards, the state sought to make sports mass-oriented and ideologically directed. Using the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant as a case study, the research reconstructs the everyday practices of physical education among plant workers, highlighting both achievements (thousands of participants in cross-country races, victories in city championships) and systemic challenges (a lack of infrastructure, personnel, and funding). The study concludes that the period of 1945–1947 marked the initial stage in the transformation of sports from a means of premilitary training into a mandatory, state-controlled system that engaged thousands of urban residents.
Keywords: physical culture, post-war recovery, Chelyabinsk, voluntary sports societies, GTO standards, VKP(b), everyday practices, Soviet sports history, newspaper "Chelyabinsk Metallurg", industrial center
Information about the authors
Potemkina M. N., Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Department of World History, Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University.
Burmistenko V. A. postgraduate, Department of World History, Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University, Magnitogorsk, Russia.
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For citation: Potemkina M. N., Burmistenko V. A. The State of Physical Education and Sports in Chelyabinsk in the first post-war years (1945–1947), Gumanitarno-pedagogicheskie issledovaniya = Humanitarian and pedagogical Research, 2026, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 39–44. (In Russ.). doi:10.18503/2658-3186-2026-10-2-39-44.