Sport Under Communism: Behind the East German ‘Miracle’ (original) (raw)

The Transformation of East German Sport

Despite continued resistance on the part of the East German Communist Party (SED) to glasnost-inspired liberalization, the high-performance sport culture of East Germany has been undergoing significant changes over the past several years which illustrate the diminishing ability of GDR sport bureaucrats to enforce the Stalinist norms established in 1949 and maintained for many years thereafter. To some extent these changes reflect the diminished authority of an anach-ronistic Politburo which now confronts the virtual inevitability of broad social and political change. This crisis of Marxist-Leninist authority has been much more visible in the world of Soviet sport, as exemplified by the unprecedented candor of Soviet sports journalism,' which has reported on fixed soccer games, 2 elite athletes' resistance to the authoritarianism of certain trainers, 3 and the administration of dangerous performance-enhancing drugs to children. 4 A careful look at developments within East Ger...

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