As the world’s athletes tackle the Tokyo Olympics, Stefanie Halpern uncovers a different Olympiad tradition, where hiking, chess and opera took place alongside track and field
In the summer of 1924 in Paris, as a stadium of 60,000 people looked on, British Jewish track-and-field star Harold Abrahams won the Olympic gold medal in the 100-metre race. Running under the flag of Great Britain, Abrahams beat competitors from 44 nations, becoming the first European to take home a gold medal in this competition. His achievement was immortalised in the 1981 Academy Awardwinning film Chariots of Fire.
The following summer, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, a very different kind of Olympiad took place: one where camaraderie was valued over competition and participation of the masses was prized over the achievements of individual athletes. Though 100,000 participants from 12 countries took part in the First International Workers’ Olympiad, the only flag in sight was the red banner of the international workers’ movement.
Members of the Morgnshtern eurythmics group, Warsaw, 1937
The International Workers’ Olympiad brought together men and women from around the world to participate in sporting contests and other cultural events that aligned with, supported, and even strengthened socialist values. It was conceived as a contrast to what was seen as the bourgeois, capitalist and nationalist underpinnings of the official Olympic Games, which privileged competition, medal-winning, recordsetting. The Workers’ Olympiad encouraged brotherhood, internationalism, solidarity, and peace. And unlike the Olympics, which required years of gruelling training to even qualify, the Workers’ Olympiad encouraged participation by all individuals regardless of training, physical ability, race, gender, religion or nationality.
Competitions in more traditional sports such as swimming, track and field, football, gymnastics and tennis were held alongside events such as hiking and chess, and all participants were encouraged to take part in any sporting event they desired without the need to first qualify. The highestperforming athletes in each competition were awarded certificates rather than the traditional gold, silver and bronze medals. The Workers’ Olympiad also encouraged participation in activities that required no physical prowess. In fact, only 3,000 of the participants in the First International Workers’ Olympiad took part in athletic contests, as choir and opera performances and lectures on literature and art were part of the official programme. At the opening ceremony, 60,000 participants took part in a dramatic representation of the workers’ struggle.
The Workers’ Olympiad grew out of the burgeoning tradition of workers’ sport organisations during the interwar period. These were founded on the principle that it was necessary for working men and women to free themselves physically and emotionally from the daily oppressions of their labour as they also prepared and educated themselves for the class struggle.
Front cover of Arbeter sportler, the monthly publication of Morgnshtern, announcing the Second Workers' Olympic, 1931
One of the Jewish organisations whose mission fitted this paradigm was Morgnshtern. Founded in 1926 as the sport organisation of the Jewish Labour Bund, it was the largest Jewish sport organisation in Poland, with over 5,000 members across 170 branches. Rather than promoting participation in organised sports that required practice, commitment or equipment, Morgnshtern espoused activities that had mass appeal, such as gymnastics, eurythmics, swimming, cycling, chess and ping pong.
In 1929 Morgnshtern sent a delegation to the congress of the Socialist Workers’ Sport International, the organising body of the International Workers’ Olympiad, and in 1931, 300 Morgnshtern members participated in the Second International Workers’ Olympiad in Vienna. Morgnshtern also helped to plan the Third Workers’ International Olympiad in Antwerp in 1937, in protest of the 1936 Nazi Olympics in Berlin. The programme proclaims that the Third Olympiad is “a demonstration of the international solidarity of the working class; and equally a demonstration for the unity of the people against the war; to express the struggle for clean and healthy sport; and for the maintenance of liberty and democracy.”
Twenty-five thousand participants from 15 countries including the USA, Belgium, Finland, France, Great Britain, Poland and Spain were expected to attend. However, in a display of what was to come, the Polish government refused to issue passports to any of the Morgnshtern participants, leaving them unable to travel to what would be the final Workers’ Olympiad.
By Stefanie Halpern
This article appears in the Summer 2021 issue of JR. Stefanie Halpern is the Director of the YIVO Archives. yivo.org