Radical call

John Goodman's character in The Big Lebowski distinguished bowling from Vietnam in that "there are rules in bowling." Russian hockey, after 25-year-old national team goalie Ivan Fedotov was drafted into the army one day so that he would not leave to play from CSKA in the NHL, is more like Vietnam. And it also looks like Soviet hockey - that is, there is nothing fundamentally new in this form of work with athletes.

In the USSR, there was an unspoken practice of army sports selection, which was based on its own selection system: the coaches of CSKA, which was patronized by the Ministry of Defense, and Dynamo, which existed under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in a variety of sports (primarily football and hockey) were "extended " lists of military-age players of interest to them . These players then received offers that were hard to refuse. Whether they were there or not, ultimately depended on the hardware weight of the army and the internal affairs agencies in a particular historical period.

In the 1930s, the Dynamo society (for some time it was personally supervised by Lavrenty Beria) had the greatest state prestige and influence, and in the first years after the Second World War - army teams. Then, in various sports, the national republican authorities entered into action: first of all, Ukraine and Georgia, where the local Central Committees patronized the local Dynamo. In the last Soviet years, the situation turned into a departmental "bulldog fight under the carpet." It is characteristic that in those years when the influence of the security forces was falling (under Khrushchev and Gorbachev), it became more difficult to “call” the right players.

Getting into CSKA protected the young athlete from getting into a real army, and also gave an additional bonus in the form of part-time service - the best players ended their careers in high army ranks and with a pension for long service. Dynamo players simultaneously "served" in the internal troops. For strikebreakers and pacifists, there were teams like the Khabarovsk SKA (a traditional place for sports exile) or the near-camp Dynamo, where the Starostin brothers (the founders of Spartak), who served time in the 1940s, trained in the 1940s. And in difficult cases, real military units: this was the case with the great football goalkeeper Vladislav Zhmelkov, who in 1940 was sent to the Trans-Baikal Military District (and then to the front) for refusing to play for the CDKA.

Plots with the call of players were complicated by the fact that in the Soviet Union there was formally neither a professional army nor professional sports. The decision to postpone the athlete was made by military departments at the institutes where they studied in absentia, by military units or sports companies, where they were listed in absentia, by teams in which they were recorded as “sports instructors”. “Real” service has always been seen as a threat, as a form of punishment: “we will deal with you according to the law”, because in ordinary life no one acts according to the law, neither the sports club nor the player himself needs this. Athletes, like much of Soviet popular culture, existed in a gray zone, the boundaries of which were always blurred, and the rights and obligations of the parties were determined by informal relations and the current historical context.

The story of Ivan Fedotov in this sense is very characteristic and very Soviet: a year ago, when he played for CSKA, his draft status did not bother anyone, and now he, most likely, will go not to Philadelphia, but to Novaya Zemlya. Yes, today's Russian athletes have contracts, rights, and compensation - but in practice, this does not prevent masked men in an unmarked van from doing their job. The degree of publicity and professional status of Russian hockey players, as well as compliance with any laws, as of 2022, should not be overestimated.

It is also interesting how the social context has changed. Even in the early 1950s, while Stalin was still alive, the forced transfer of the leading Spartak midfielder Sergei Salnikov to Dynamo (Salnikov was blackmailed by threats to his stepfather, who was in the camp) was perceived by the sports community as a great state injustice. Fans sent letters of protest to the Central Committee , and official sports newspapers published analytical columns with questions to sports and police officials. At the same time, the players and the leadership of the Moscow "Wings of the Soviets" successfully beat off the future Moscow football star Nikita Simonyan from the Georgian KGB (and the local Dynamo). During the years of perestroika, the escape of leading Soviet hockey players to the NHL was often perceived as a triumph of justice and the right to self-determination.

Now everything is different. The sports media actively covers the situation, and many journalists openly oppose Fedotov's call, but otherwise the public field is formed by statements of former and current athletes and politicians in the genre of "what happened." Alexander Mogilny, who in 1989 was the first to flee to the United States, leaving the location of the Soviet team, asks what he has to do with it. Vyacheslav Fetisov, who was then personally threatened by the Minister of Defense Yazov, talks about the fact that he was officially dismissed from the army, so this is different. Sergei Fedorov, who fled to Detroit from the same CSKA, is simply silent.

The modern Russian system has inherited from the Soviet repressive mechanism and the power selection system. Previously, black Volgas used to come to the stadium, now they are vans. But it seems that differences are more important than similarities: if earlier “their” departments and public opinion could protect their athletes, now there are no power balances or corporate solidarity. Athletes remain public figures and, at the same time, canaries in coal mines.

The opinion of the author may not coincide with the opinion of the editors.