Dr.Hab., Professor V.N. Zuev¹
PhD, Professor P.G. Smirnov^2
1Tyumen State University, Tyumen
²Tyumen State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Tyumen

Keywords: test types, age categories, conversion, GTO complex, standards, legal vector, requirements, synergy, restructuring, defence potential, physical fitness

Background

It was in the late 1920ies and early 1930ies that the physical culture and sport movement in the Soviet Union was on the rise to involve millions of enthusiastic Soviet people. Multiple defence-sport groups, flying clubs, shooting galleries and ranges, parachute turrets etc. were constructed for the sport activists. It should be noted, however, that a physical culture dimension was not always sound enough in the activities of these sport groups.

The general logic of the events called for a radical and strategic management decision to establish a legal vector to support and facilitate the public physical cultural movement in the country. This objective was addressed by the GTO (Ready for Labour and Defence) Complex designed to improve the public health standards for the benefit of the national defence and labour potential. The project was, following the public discussion campaign, approved the USSR Central Executive Committee National Physical Culture Council (CEC NPCC) decision of March 11, 1931and thereby a fundamental legal provision was put into effect for the popular physical culture improvement initiatives [2, 5, 6].

Objective of the study was to make a historic overview and analysis of the main stages in the legal vector conversion process to support the GTO Complex and secure synergy of the national  ideology for the sector.

Methods and design of the study. Subject to the study was the period of 1931-2015 that may be generally described as the time of social reforms that resulted in one social and political system being replaced by the other with the relevant fundamental reforms in the society including a few cycles in the GTO advancement process and the relevant radical transformations in the national physical education and sports sector process.

In addition to the growing role of the state in pursuing the theoretically balanced policies in the national physical education and sports sector, the process was designed to give a traditionally high role to the sector-controlling government agencies that supported the process by their policy decisions formalized by the relevant legal and regulatory provisions [1, 3, 4].

Study results and discussion. We have classified the subject period, as dictated by the study objectives and goals, into the following five stages of the GTO Complex development process.

Stage One of 1931-1946 was the GTO Complex establishment and domination period when most of the key sector policy decisions were made by the relevant top agencies of the Soviet Government generally geared to improve the public health standards for the benefit of the national defence and labour potential. In early 1931 (spring), the GTO Class I tests and standards were put into effect to cover 15 sport disciplines including races, jumps, throws, swimming and skiing sports etc. A contender for a GTO Class badge was required to be knowledgeable in self-control methods during physical practices, basic history and principles of the Soviet physical education system, be able to give first medial aid and demonstrate good progress in labour and/or education. The GTO testable age groups at this stage were the following: men 18-30, 30-40 and 40+; women 17-25, 25-35 and 35+ years old. Therefore, the GTO program was designed at this stage to cover the most physically capable social groups that could make the dominant contribution to the national defence and national economy advancement process in the period of the first and most challenging five-year economic cycles.

The GTO Class I movement was so popular that only one year later the government made a decision to introduce a GTO Class II system that offered 3 theoretical tests and 22 practical tests to the contenders.

In 1934, the GTO Complex was complemented – in order to make it even more popular among the future potential defenders and labourers of the young nation – by junior GTO Class “Get Ready for Labour and Defence” (BGTO). The new subsystem was put into effect by a policy decision and the relevant legal provision of the USSR Central Executive Committee National Physical Culture Council that read the following: “To support the broader children’s voluntary physical education initiatives and help the children, pioneers and pupils' physical culture being advanced on a broad basis to improve their health standards and advance their physical culture, we decree hereby to introduce a Child’s Badge “Get Ready for Labour and Defence” (BGTO)”. The newly introduced BGTO Class included 13 practical tests and 3 theoretical tests designed to rate the physical fitness of the 13-14 and 15-16 years-old school children.

The legal vector for the BGTO Class system crowned the first GTO version development process that had clearly stated missions and design of the system and provided a great impetus to the popular physical culture movement in the USSR.

It was on November 26, 1939 that the supreme body of the Soviet Government endorsed one more legal provision, namely the People’s Commissars’ Council Decree “On Introduction of a New Physical Culture Complex “Ready for Labour and Defence”. The policy decision was largely motivated by the new challenges in the political situation and increased global militarization that required the government to make the necessary adjustments to the national physical culture movement. The above legal provision set forth a new classification of the GTO exercises and tests to introduce: seven GTO Class II tests; six GTO Class I tests; and five BGTO tests. Eligible age groups were also revised as follows: BGTO: 14-17 year-olds; GTO: 17-41+ years old men and 17-33+ years old women. In addition, the PCC Decree set provisions for the existing national physical education programs being updated to tailor them to the new GTO Complex.

In the period of the Great Patriotic War, the government took initiatives to step up the defence aspects of the physical education system and, among other things, the National Committee for the Matters of Physical Culture and Sports (NCPCS) under the Central Committee of the USSR approved (in 1942) the Decree “On the GTO Complex Revision in the Context of the War Time Needs”. Necessary adjustments were made to the GTO system to meet the war-time requirements and contribute to the popular combat/ applied training initiatives. On the whole, the GTO standards and tests were cut down in numbers and a variety of new combat tests including cross-country marching, water obstacle crossing, crawling, bayonet fight and grenade throw tests were introduced as the basic and obligatory ones [3, 5, 6].

Stage Two of 1946-1960 was the efficient government development stage when the GTO standards and tests were somewhat cut down in numbers and harmonized to demonstrate the peaceful policies of the Soviet Union following the great victory in the Great Patriotic War. With this objective in mind, the National Committee for the Matters of Physical Culture and Sports (NCPCS) under the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the USSR approved (in 1946) a Decree “On the GTO Complex Revision in the Context of the Peace Time to Exclude Combat/ Applied Tests”. The Decree mandated revisions of the combat/ applied tests and, hence, the GTO system tests were cut down as follows: BGTO tests were cut down from 11 to 7; the GTO Class I tests were cut down from 14 to 9 (men) and 13 to 8 (women); and the GTO Class II tests were cut down by 6. The downstream government bodies approved the relevant regulatory provisions on the GTO tests being performed only in the course of sport competitions.

It was in 1955 that the National Committee for the Matters of Physical Culture and Sports (NCPCS) under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR approved a Decree “On Harmonizing the GTO Complex with the Physical Education Curricula in Educational Institutions”. Four years later, by the year of 1959, the GTO standards and requirements were made much more stringent as the contenders were required to score certain points to qualify. The GTO sport tests could be passed only within the frame of the relevant competitions to advance mass sports and improve the physical fitness standards of the GTO badge holders, with the test standards being persistently updated at every process stage under the study (see Table 1 hereunder) [2-4].

Table 1.  Legal and regulatory provisions for the GTO Complex permanent updating process

Stage Three of 1960-1980 was the system liberalization and reform stage when the physical culture and sport movement in the USSR was on the progress path driven by the GTO concepts. The nation faced serious social and economic reforms at that time associated with general acceleration of children and adolescents, growing life expectancy rates, modern developments in health sector, growing GDP (in the per-capita terms) etc., and the GTO Complex was updated as required by the new developments and challenges.

It was for the first time ever that in 1972 the partisan bodies in cooperation with the government agencies approved a Decree of the CC CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On Introducing a New National Physical Culture Complex “Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR” with the relevant revisions in the age limits of the GTO Complex: the testable age was set at 9-60 years (the 7-9 years-old group was set later on in 1979) in the context of the increased number of the age groups, with tests coming to 18 including the BGTO tests. It should be noted that the GTO tests at this stage were duly supported by the relevant theoretical grounds [5, 6].

Stage Four of 1980-1991 was the GTO system stagnation and neglecting stage. It was a general trend at Stage Four that public negative attitudes to the GTO system were on the rise in the majority of social groups; and, albeit the national government tried to update the GTO system design and content in 1985, its role and image was on the fall. In the attempt to counter the negative trends, the State Sport Committee of the USSR (in 1988) issued a Decree “On the Changes and Amendments to the Statute of the “Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR” (GTO) Complex”. The Decree was preceded by a broad public discussion of the modern place and role of the GTO system, and the public opinions were rather diverse including the claims to liquidate the GTO Complex due to its system being riddled with formalism and bureaucracy dominating in the test process. As a result, the GTO Complex was revised to include only 2 Classes with 3 standards and 3-5 requirements in every Class and with 15 tests on the whole. The individual tests were required to be passed in one day, and the whole test set was to be completed per one academic/ calendar year. To counter the corruption and formalism in the corporate physical culture and sport process, the relevant organizations were no more required to report progress in the GTO badge qualifications for certain reporting periods. In addition, the age limit for the GTO qualifications was set at 10 to 60 years.

A retrospective analysis of the multifunctional legal vector to support the GTO system and secure its synergy at two stages of the Soviet period (1931-1960) showed the following. The Complex was a pivotal element of the new national ideology that implied concrete physical education standards and requirements geared to establish high physical culture standards as a tool for the modern government to: reinforce the national defence potential and public fitness for military missions; and step up the labour efficiency standards based on the physical education system. It may be stated with confidence that, after the GTO Complex was introduced back in 1931, the national physical education system received the necessary fundamentals, objectives, programs and legal and regulatory framework.

Later on in the GTO system development process it faced clear negative trends dominated by the process stagnation and sags in the Complex popularity and role in the national physical education system, with the permanent revisions of the test structure in the GTO system. Of further negative effect on the GTO system in this period were the governmental policies that no more rated the GTO Complex among the top priorities and largely neglected it on the whole including its financial provisioning aspects in particular [4, 6].

Stage Five of 2013-2015 was the national policy modernization stage in terms of the new public health improvement agenda. It should be first noted that the legal provisions for the GTO Complex were left unchanged in the post-Soviet period of the national development process since the local sector government agencies saw no need in them in fact. However, in the late XX and early XXI century the public health and general physical fitness standards sagged so drastically that the government realized that these negative trends could hamper further national development strategies; and this was the reason for the physical education and sports being put back on track among the top priorities of the governmental policies and the relevant federal government sports-focused programs being developed and duly financed.

It was on 13.03.2013 that President V.V. Putin in his speech at a meeting considering the children’s and youth sports development challenges in the country came up with the idea to revive the GTO Complex in a modern format. Pursuant to the President’s initiative, a few relevant legal provisions were developed and adopted. The President of the RF Commission #Pr-756 of April 04, 2013 required that the relevant federal executive government agencies should develop a Statute of the modern National Physical Culture and Sport Complex. The Ministry of Sports of Russia issued Order #245 of 06.05.2013 “On the Actions to Draft the National Physical Culture and Sport Complex” and established a task team composed of the leading specialists and researchers of the country.

To remove barriers and counter problems in the process, Presidential Decree #172 of March 24, 2014 “On the National Physical Culture and Sport Complex “Ready for Labour and Defence (GTO)” was issued as a supporting legal act. Pursuant to the latter, the local governments of the RF approved the relevant legal and regulatory provisions for the GTO National Physical Culture and Sport Complex being tested in 2015. The modern “Ready for Labour and Defence (GTO) Complex sets the following age groups trainable and testable by the GTO systems: 6-70+ year-olds tested by 11 tests compliant with the relevant state standards. The legal provision sets forth 11 tests under the new system. The new legal vector was essentially spelled out by Federal Law #254-FL of 05.10.2015 “On the Changes and Amendments to the Federal Law “On the Physical Culture and Sports in the RF”. Mass sports will be encouraged and made more accessible for the people of different age groups and health conditions, and this is the prime objective of the GTO system revival initiative. “The GTO Program re-launching initiative puts to the forefront the need for new sport grounds, with growing demand for the non-profit sport clubs and facilities available in places of residence, work and service, i.e. within walking distance”. The relevant outdoor sport facilities will be also made available to the public [7, 8].

Conclusion. It is a high time for the theoretical and practical heritage of the national GTO Complex development and application experience that has been accumulated for about 60 years to be revived for the benefit of the modern physical education system. The legal vector conversion to support the GTO Complex modernization for the synergic effect in the sector with due consideration for the relevant testing and age grouping requirements for the GTO system progress at every stage calls for an efficient modern national ideology being developed to support the process.

References

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Corresponding author: zuev_sport72@mail.ru

Abstract

The article examines the main stages of conversion of the legal vector into the GTO (Ready for Labour and Defence) complex to provide a synergetic effect of the state ideology.

For several decades, the GTO complex has been the normative basis of physical education of Soviet citizens, adjusted in accordance with the socio-economic and political situation in the domestic and foreign environment of the country. Deterioration of health and physical fitness of the population, commercialization of the physical education and sport sector, the lack of unified regulatory requirements, moral and material incentives for the large-scale involvement of Russian citizens into physical exercises, the complicated foreign policy status were the main factors for the adoption of the major government decision on revival of the Russian physical culture and sport complex "Ready for Labour and Defence" (GTO).