Diplomatic Games: Sport, Statecraft, and International Relations since 1945

3. Welcoming the “Third World”

85 3 Welcoming the “Third World” soviet sport Diplomacy, Developing nations, and the olympic Games Jenifer Parks in a 1959 article on sport exchanges titled “Za Druzhbu!” (to friendship !), the vice president of the national olympic committee (noc) of the Ussr, mikhail pesliak, announced the first soviet sports delegation to africa. Ukrainian soccer players had traveled to egypt, sudan, and ethiopia, becoming in pesliak’s words the “first explorers in our [soviet] sports journey into the depths of africa, to countries who have great sympathy for the soviet Union.”1 from the soviet Union’s entrance into the olympic Games in 1952, sport became a key facet of soviet foreign relations . High-profile, international meets provided an opportunity for the soviet Union to display the strength of its socialist system. sport also provided a way for the soviet Union to win friends abroad through sport aid and exchanges of expertise, equipment, and personnel. Under Joseph stalin’s leadership, most sport exchanges were between the soviet Union and its eastern european satellite states. after nikita Khrushchev came to power, however, international sport relations were expanded, and the developing world became a key target of a new soviet initiative to bring more nations into the olympic movement. Under the leadership of leonid brezhnev, moscow secured the bid to host the olympic Games, and 86 Jenifer parks sport relations with the developing world became a key component in the campaign to make the 1980 summer olympics the biggest and the best. in this chapter, i seek to understand the relationship between soviet foreign policy and sport relations as they worked together to expand soviet influence in the world and prove socialist supremacy through sport. sport in the soviet Union has become a fruitful area of investigation.2 much existing literature on the olympic Games examines the relationship between international sport and politics, emphasizing the internal politics of the olympic movement, as well as the use of the olympics by state actors to promote national prestige.3 many western works on soviet participation in the olympics have explored specific instances where cold war rivalries played out in the international arena.4 recent studies have also explored the use of sport by state actors to achieve foreign policy goals.5 other works have acknowledged the role of athletes serving as international ambassadors of their nation through their dominance on the field as well as their image off the field.6 soviet sport policy can be seen as one part of a larger arena of public diplomacy, which Geoffrey cowan and nicholas J. cull define as “an international actor’s attempt to advance the ends of policy by engaging with foreign publics.”7 such engagement “became a more substantial area during the cold war, dominated by campaigns to garner support for the delicate balance of nuclear weapons and the ideological battle for the hearts and minds of people around the world.”8 cultural competition between the two superpowers increasingly became an “all-encompassing effort involving such things as sporting events, cultural attractions, economic activities, education, trade, diplomacy, and scientific achievement.”9 cultural outreach helped each superpower exercise its “soft power” during the cold war by attracting potential client states that “wanted to follow [either the United states or the Ussr], admiring its values, emulating its example, and/or aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness.”10 somewhat sooner than their american rivals, the leaders of the communist party of the soviet Union (cpsU) as well as those of various state organs increasingly recognized the potential of sport competitions, exchanges, and aid programs as important avenues to win client states around the world. as the cold war divided the world between western and socialist spheres, the United states and the soviet Union competed to attract de- welcoming the “Third world” 87 veloping nations to their respective ideological and socioeconomic camps. The increasing availability of documents since the end of the cold war has allowed scholars to analyze soviet support for anticolonial movements as well as the role of local actors in this struggle for influence in the developing world.11 recent literature from the perspective of the global south (including chapters in this volume) has enhanced our understanding of how newly independent and developing nations used sport for their own ends. scholarship on sport and colonialism has shown that colonial sport could often be the site of conflict and of challenge to the colonial...