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In its origins, the communists, direct predecessors of the socialism of the 21st century, discussed intensely about the role of sport in society. The Tour of Italy, for example, whose first edition ran in 1909, had unexpected enemies: the Italian communists, who considered that the turn manipulated the people promoting national and patriotic pride while exploding cyclists to have fun to the masses while the true social problems were ignored.
Not long after, the arrival of communism in the Soviet Union, over there in 1917, ended all existing social organizations, including football. It was until the mid -20s, at the end of the civil war and with the attempt to revitalize the economy through the new economic policy (NEP), which began to resurface the sport.
The conjunction of collectivization and state with the authorization of private initiatives put the communist regime before a dilemma of principles. They had to define whether, as it was traditional for Marxism-Leninism, sport was a circus, an instrument of the ruling classes and a form of political manipulation, or if, on the contrary, the sport had a useful role for the collective in a regime where, by definition, there would be no oppressive elites of the people.
Soviet communism, while Lenin lived and the NEP operated, discussed whether it was chosen by the route of Western professionalism or focused on the amateurism of the Olympic movement. After Lenin's death, the NEP was abandoned and an eminently state strategy was chosen. The Soviet state paid, in the midst of stalinist terror, sport and recreation as a basic instrument to maintain a healthy, disciplined and cooperative society.
Over time, in the Soviet Union and the countries of its sphere of control, sport was also a media instrument to face the West and demonstrate the superiority of the communist regime against capitalist economies.
Petro and his disdain for sport demonstrate the difference between communism and populism. The communists, anchored to dictatorial power, used sport as an internal and external propaganda instrument. Populism prioritizes the delivery of money directly to the people, understanding that their electoral revenues are greater than the joys that athletes give us. The two, in the long run, destroy society.
This will not prevent, of course, that the populist regime understands as its own media victory of one of our suffering athletes and blames 200 years of oligarchy for the defeats of yesteryear.
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