Voluntary Sports Societies of the Soviet Union

The system of the Volunteer Sports Societies arose out of the established sports societies of the Russian Empire of 1721-1917. As early as the end of 17th century a system of military-fitness training started to form in the Imperial Russian Army (officially founded in 1721), while the military and selected civilian educational institutions introduced participation in complexes of fitness exercises such as gymnastics, shooting, fencing, and other sports.

Already in the first half of 19th century sports schools, clubs, societies (sailing and rowing, fencing, swimming, ice skating, cycling, and others) appeared in Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and other cities of the Russian Empire. The yacht clubs of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg figured among the first such societies. Along with the development of the sport societies, official sports competitions started. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia states that usually those sports clubs and unions were chartered and financed by representatives of the bourgeoisie and of the nobility, and that access to them for students and working youth "was extremely limited". At the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries there appeared workers' sports organizations across the cities of the Russian Empire. Prominent roles in the development of the Russian sport were played by the "Petersburg's Circle of Sports Fans" (established in 1889), the "Russian Gymnastics Society" (1882, Moscow), the "Petersburg Society of Skating Fans" (1877), the "Circle of Athletic Fans" (1885, Petersburg), and others.

In 1896 the founder of a scientific system of fitness education, Pyotr Lesgaft (1837–1909),[1] opened in Petersburg the courses of educators and leaders of physical education that eventually became a prototype of the higher-learning institutions in physical education established in the Soviet Union and abroad. In the beginning of the 20th century All-Russian unions on sports emerged and organized the first championships. In 1913 the First Russian Sporting Olympiad took place in Kiev where some 600 people - including females - participated. The Second Russian Sporting Olympiad followed the next year (1914) in Riga involving over 1,000 participants. The program of those Olympics consisted of light athletics, gymnastics, fencing, association football, tennis, heavy athletics, swimming, rowing, sailing, modern pentathlon, shooting, equestrian, and cycling.

The Russian Empire figured among the 12 countries, representatives of which, at the first international Olympic Congress in Paris in 1894, decided to revive the Olympics and established the International Olympic Committee. Sportsmen of the Russian Empire participated in the 1908 Olympics (5 members) and in the 1912 Olympics (174 members). In 1914 the Russian Empire had 1,200 sports unions involving some 45,000 participants out of some 332 cities and other settlements.

After the October Revolution of late 1917 the state governing of the workers' physical training was assigned in 1918 to the Main Department of Vsevobuch (Universal Military Training) along with which was established in 1920 the Supreme Council of Fitness Culture (VSFK) (Russian: Высший совет физической культуры). In 1923 such VSFKs were set up for every Executive Committee of each Soviet region. In 1936 the council was reformed into the All-Union committee for fitness culture and sports affairs for the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Russian: Всесоюзный комитет по делам физической культуры и спорта при СНК СССР).

VSS Spartak, the first of the future Union-wide national sports societies, dates from 1935. The society united the workers of local industries, communal economy, culture, automobile transportation, civil aviation, and others. In the following years numerous other sport societies were set up throughout the Soviet Union. Some societies were closely associated with a single industry; others had associations with a combination of several. For example, athletes from factory schools and vocational schools were united into VSS Trudovye Rezervy in 1943. The formation of the kernel of the system was complete in the 1950s, when village VSS were established in all 16 of the then Soviet republics (including the Karelo-Finnish SSR until 1956).

In 1982 the Presidium of the VTsSPS reorganized 33 Trade Unions' VSS. None were abolished, just the governing organization of most of them was changed from VTsSPS to another one. The eight largest Trade Unions' VSS remained under VTsSPS leadership: Burevestnik, Vodnik, Zenit, Lokomotiv, Spartak, Trud, Urozhai, FiS (Russian: ФиС - физкультура и спорт; English: fitness and sports). According to Soviet sources (which are questionable), these eight VSS united 48.365 million members.[2] VSS that did not belong to Trade Unions were not reorganized.

In February 1987 all VSS were abolished by the VTsSPS.[3][4] On the basis of eight Trade Unions' VSS, one All-Union Volunteer Fitness and Sports Society of Trade Unions (Russian: Всесоюзное добровольное физкультурно-спортивное общество профсоюзов, ВДФСО профсоюзов, Vsesoyuznoe Dobrobolvolne Fiykultura-Sportivne Obshestvo Profsoyzhov, VDFSO Profsoyzhov) was created. The rural VSS were also combined into a single All-Union rural VSS. Two national societies from athletes from all the Union Republics had already been formed on the basis of the 15 societies in 1982.

• Torpedo (automobile and truck manufacture industries)
• Neftyanik (Oil industry)
• Energia (energy and power industries)
• Stroitel (building industries)
• Start
• Khimik (Chemcal Industries)
• Metallurg (metals industries)
• Krasnaya Zvezda (Armed forces)
• Shakhter (Mining industry)
• Krilya Sovietov (Aircraft factories)
• Chernomorets (Merchant marine and port workers)
• Pishchevik (Food distribution)
• Stalinets (Electrical machines)
• Zapolyarnik
• Tekstilschik (Textiles and clothing production)