From Mass Sport to the "Sport for All" Movement in the "Socialist" Countries in Eastern Europe

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Abstract
Modern societies face a new problem: they have to spread sporting activities for all citizens without having institutions suitable for it. Depending on political, economic and cultural circumstances the individual states provide different answers to this challenge. This paper studies how countries in the Eastern Bloc promoted their population's physical activity. In the first part political and social backgrounds are discussed. The author argues that the Eastern Bloc countries had very special conditions to develop "Sport for All" compared with Western countries. In Western democracies "Sport for All" can be set as a target but such an aim can hardly be realized. In any democratic country it is each citizen's right to decide what to do and what not to do. Sport involvement can be suggested, opportunities and equality of chances for it can be ensured but sport participation cannot be forced. On the contrary totalitarian states can not only influence but in many cases strictly determine their citizens' social behaviour. Though there were significant differences between them, all Eastern Bloc countries were totalitarian. Their political power was absolutely centralized. They were based on a one- party system, on planned economy and even planned culture. Moreover, they declared themselves communist and according to this ideology respect for privacy was very limited. As a consequence of all this — as strange as it may seem — these political structures were or rather could have been favourable for the development of their populations' physical activity. In the second part a short history of mass sport movements in the fifties, of leisuretime sport movements in the sixties and seventies and of the introduction of "Sport for All" in the eighties in some Eastern European countries, especially in Hungary is described and analyzed. In conclusion the author deals with the present and future of the "Sport for All" movement in Eastern Europe.

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