Stalin's Fitness Plan 2.0

[akv]

Russia Is Restarting Stalin's National Fitness Program

By Charles Recknagel

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.


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, 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.

This post appears courtesy of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...rogram/359682/

Copyright © 2014 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

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[Peregrino]

And the average American rolled their eyes, snorted, grabbed their bag of potato chips, diet Coke, and X-box controller, and settled in on the couch to play Call of Duty. The threat is real; modern America's response is/will be: "Those silly Soviets - whatever could they be thinking? Don't they know civilized nations can't behave like that?".

[The Reaper]

That isn't going to help them with their long-term problem.

Demographics.

TR

[Peregrino]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

That isn't going to help them with their long-term problem.

Demographics.

TR

We have the same problem here. Perhaps not on the same scale, but true nonetheless.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Peregrino

We have the same problem here. Perhaps not on the same scale, but true nonetheless.

Not exactly.

Unlike the Russians, we have a positive population growth here.

The problem is that our growth is mostly takers, not makers.

Do your part to create your replacement units.

TR

[Dusty]

This Country's raising a crop of effete sissies who expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter while Putin's looking for world domination in the near future and is indoctrinating the youth in his AO toward that goal.

Russia laughs at our leaders derisively; the same leaders who our side seems to be afraid to confront.

Somebody like Rand Paul needs to get his machine in gear and we need to yank on the Country's rudder most tick, or our grandbabies are gonna grow up chanting "Vladimir! Vladimir!" by the time we FOG's finally auger in.

[Kyobanim]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Not exactly.

Do your part to create your replacement units.

TR

My part that creates replacement units is now just a training device.

[GratefulCitizen]

Population growth isn't the only demographic issue.
Dependency ratios are important.

Rich countries are better at tolerating rising dependency ratios.
Poor countries will tend to lose their young, productive workers to rich countries if dependency ratios rise too quickly.

Russia (and China) will grow old before they grow rich.
This will drive desperate actions.

http://esa.un.org/unpd/ppp/Figures-O...ency-Ratio.htm

[mojaveman]

Stalin's fitness plan or maybe even Hitler's. Maybe history really does repeat itself.

[Basenshukai]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Do your part to create your replacement units.

TR

And, for those of you from Eglin, TR means, create them in the USA, not south of Texas.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Kyobanim

My part that creates replacement units is now just a training device.

Keep practicing and pray a lot.

TR

[SpNkid]

I remember the GTO program in my youth. I can't say anything bad about it. I can only welcome any program aimed at promoting sport and health among young people.
We did not depart from the playgrounds and gyms all our free time , sought to perform standards and were proud of our successes, unlike other guys who knew a lot about alcohol and tobacco since twelve years old and who probably thought we were morons. Any Mao-style ideology were not. Sport and health versus drugs and child criminality. There was a fashion, popularity for sports appearance and sporty lifestyle.
And I disagree about it needlessness for demographics. Healthy people give birth to more healthy children.

[mark46th]

" I do wish our country would focus more on fitness though. We could really lower healthcare costs if people would just lose some weight. But that isn't gonna happen." Broad Sword

It won't happen as long as teaching LGBT Rights, History according to the left, classes are taught in native languages and zero tolerance issues are more important than Phys Ed...

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Kyobanim

My part that creates replacement units is now just a training device.

It's blue and inert?

[Stobey]

Oooooh. That's hitting below the belt!