The Red Army's White Square

On the Soviet chess machine

Reykjavik, Iceland is an odd place for perhaps the most direct confrontation between the USSR and the United States during the Cold War. Yet in 1972, this is where the World Chess Championship was played, between Bobby Fischer of the United States, and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Republic. While not necessarily a “culmination” of the Cold War, it was the safest possible confrontation between the latest  product of an absolutely dominant chess tradition and a brilliant, unstable talent.

The Soviet chess tradition grew out of a near-unhealthy obsession with the game, where, post-Bolshevik revolution, the strongest Russian Masters would compete in an unlit, frigid basement, in times so chaotic and economically strenuous that lighting a box of matches was a great sacrifice to be made to be able play in the night. Though a certain number of strong players had died or fled due to the warring, the Masters continued to pursue chess excellence, though the game was not approved of, being considered “bourgeois”.

The course of Soviet chess took a major change when chess enthusiasts started being appointed to military positions. The official party stance on the game of leisure lightened, and the first Russian Chess Olympiads (which eventually became the Soviet Chess Championships) were held to attempt to find the strongest players, which led to the creation of the “All-Union Chess Congress” — clearly, the state had embraced the popularity of the game and now sought to mobilize chess players and further their prowess. However, there was a caveat — due to the power struggles and state of labor, many participants were wary of participating in a tournament. Thus, the players started to be incentivized to participate with prizes, food, and rubles.

Further economic hardships led to inflation, where the price of chess sets, books, and clocks dramatically rose. However, while the government and economy were faltering, the chess quality rose dramatically. By the time of the second Soviet Championship, though, again, a few strong players were unable to participate, the “basement masters” generally finished in the middle of the pack, as opposed to the top, indicating the overall level of play had increased, coinciding with the first forays into developing opening theory.

By the time the “All-Russia Chess Union”, as it had come to be called, had invited World Champion Emanuel Lasker of Germany to Petrograd, it was clear that chess was diverging from the mainstream politics. Lasker’s arrival signaled the first friendly interactions with capitalist countries since the revolution, and was celebrated by the most prominent Soviet players and academics. A curious thing to note is that, in one of the simultaneous exhibitions Lasker played, Mikhail Botvinnik, who shaped the most dominant era of Soviet chess, participated at the age of 13. Lasker’s effect on the overall image of chess in the Russian state is almost a precursor to the ischer effect that would take the world by storm in 1972 — when the third Soviet Chess Championship took place, there were festivities befitting of a tournament of grandeur. Outside the Winter Palace, there was a “live” chess game played with human pieces, where an unprecedented 5000 spectators attended. The iconic result of the third Championship came in the form of a cultural shift of “Chess to the Workers!” – the All-Russia Chess Union was de-funded and replaced with an “All-Union Chess Section” which had an official place in the government. “Take Chess to the Workers” became an official slogan, and an official publication titled 64 (after the number of squares on the chessboard) was formed.

With the formation of Chess Section and the goal of “chess for the masses”, Nikolai Krylenko, the head of the Chess Section had two visions – one was of huge tournaments and matches for the working Russians to partake in, and the second a decidedly non-Leninist “big chess” spectacle, where the top players of the Soviet Union would display their strength in international tournaments. The first goal was undertaken by pushing chess into the Army, with events such as the Red Army championships being held, and an Army Chess Club in Moscow being formed. The success of the Army Chess Club led to the opening of many chess clubs for the common man, and by 1930, 150,000 Russians were registered chess players, and the All-Union Workers Tournament was a regular event. Concurrently, the first international tournaments were held, with the iconic Moscow International in 1925 setting the pace. The first Russian chess film, “Chess Fever”, was made at the time, and featured some of the participants in the International. The film is particularly iconic as it was the biggest influence on Russian youth yet, moreso than Lasker ever did, and sparked the formation of the Russian dominance of chess for the next half century. The International had shown how far Russian chess had developed, from the basement Masters to faring well against the likes of all-time greats such as Lasker and Jose Capablanca. A system of titles was deemed necessary, so the titles of “Master of Sport of the USSR”, and eventually “Soviet Grandmaster” were created. The titles were extremely hard to attain — players were usually ranked by categories, with the current day Grandmaster ranking being equivalent to third-category, and all time legends like Botvinnik being ranked “first-category”. By 1940, Botvinnik was one of only three Soviet Grandmasters amidst nearly 1 million registered Russian players, and easily one of the strongest players in the world.

The Soviet Grandmaster title is particularly notable because it was one of the few purely meritocratic achievements within the USSR. A notable point as to how meritocratic the Russian chess institution became is how women were encouraged to play, and able to attain the master title as well — indeed, the first Russian’s Women Championship had over 10,000 players, and eventually, the first woman reached the Soviet Master rating. Due to the minuscule percentage of chess players who attained such titles amidst the exponentially increasing number of Russian chess players, and the extraordinary talent and work required, the Soviet Grandmaster was afforded the luxury of playing in international tournaments, competing for prizes, and freedom from the Government to devote their lives to pursuing chess. Perhaps most importantly, there was no “set manner” a Soviet Grandmaster must accordingly shape their playing style to — rather than follow, they were allowed full creative power in how they developed the game, which resulted in a uniquely Soviet manner of intense study and play. Undoubtedly the leader of this development was Mikhail Botvinnik, who won his first Soviet Championship in 1931, and, after finishing his studies, dominated world chess from 1940 to 1960. After he won the 1948 World Championship for the first time in Moscow, he was able to spread the system he used to do so — an obsession with preparation for openings, rather than specific combinations, and development of small edges that could be used from game to game, rather than once. Botvinnik was an interesting character, in that he took the traditional, rigid Soviet views and manners and exploited them to produce some of the most creative work done in opening theory. The appropriately named “Slav Defense”, and it’s many variations named after Russian cities (Moscow variation) and players was heavily developed at this time, and remains Black’s most popular response to 1.d4 today. Botvinnik’s dominance and development of the Soviet game was hailed as a success of the political system, but ironically enough, he was given the treatment similar to the sports star in the United States. He lived in luxury, was able to travel as he pleased, and had access to imported goods, all due to his success in chess.

While Botvinnik lost his title twice from the period 1948-1963 to other Soviet GMs he trained and helped, his influence was startling, having some role in every USSR world-class chess player’s development up until the end of the Soviet Union. Boris Spassky was discovered as a talent when he defeated Botvinnik himself at the age of 10. He was one of the most talented pupils to train in the Soviet system, and set records for being the youngest Soviet first category, candidate master, and master strength player. Spassky first competed at the elite world stage at the age of 16, and scored an impressive 50%. Spassky’s career at the top was markedly different from Botvinnik – whereas Botvinnik was obsessive in preparation and work ethic, Spassky preferred to enjoy the life his chess prowess earned him.  While winning the world title propelled Botvinnik to shape Soviet chess, Spassky felt his ambition drain away after winning the title at the end of the 1960s. By the time Fischer had qualified to challenge him for the title, Spassky was seemingly dissatisfied with his life in the Soviet Union, and a few years after the match, would leave the Soviet Republic.

Bobby Fischer’s story, on the other hand, was set in impoverished conditions. He was born in Chicago into a near-homeless single mother household. At the age of 6, he moved to Brooklyn, and learned to play chess from a small set his mother bought to entertain him. He became enamored with the game, and, since he had nobody to play with, would obsessively play matches against himself. Chess soon became his life, and he would eventually find mentorship around the age of 12. When Bobby turned 13, in 1956, his playing strength skyrocketed, going from roughly a category 3 strength player to qualifying for the US championship a year later, amidst master level players. He was expected to finish slightly over 50% – instead, he won the title, becoming the youngest US champion ever, at the age of 14. Bobby quickly qualified for World-tier events, where he began to hear of the Russian attitudes towards chess and improvement – his desire to go to Russia to study was so strong that he attempted to teach himself Russian to read the famous chess periodicals of the time, and had his mother write directly to Nikita Khruschev to ask for permission to participate in the World Youth tournament in Moscow. A year after the letter, for which the reply was “yes” but the airfare unaffordable, Fischer finally made it to Moscow after receiving a round trip prize from a gameshow. Upon arrival, he immediately went to the Moscow Central Chess Club and played with several masters present. The Russians he met and competed against at the international level were all stunned by his hyper-obsession with chess. At 16, he was consistently the top non-Soviet finisher in international competitions. His talent, however, was not supported by the US government at all. In the first chess Olympiad he would have qualified for, the US government refused to send a team, as the event was being held in East Germany, behind the Iron Curtain. Whatever resentment he held towards the US Government began shifting to the Soviets, as he was aware that not only did Soviet players work together, but also manipulated results amongst themselves to prevent international players from finishing at the top of the tournament crosstables. However, his pursuit of the world title was marred by an inability to pull his mental state together, and he took a semi-leave from seriously playing chess in the early to mid 1960s.

Around 1970, Fischer decided he would fully dedicate himself to attaining the World Title, and qualified for the championship match in dramatic fashion. The tournament structure at the time required finishing at the top of the crosstables in a Candidates tournament, which determined seedings into a match playoff tournament, which would determine the final challenger to the World Championship title. Fischer won the tournament, and in the first two matches, beat his opponents 6-0, an absolutely absurd result. To qualify for the match against Spassky, he defeated another Soviet Grandmaster 6.5-2.5, which set the stage for the Reykjavik match.

The irony of Fischer qualifying as the first Western chess player to challenge the World Champion in the Soviet Era is that, in many ways, he was the ideal player for the Soviet chess school, mental instability aside. Fischer was the human pinnacle of Botvinnik’s obsessive study combined with an unrivaled natural talent. Spassky, on the other hand, was content after having reached the pinnacle of the game, and soon after the World Championship match, ceased to play serious top level chess. The “misplacement” of the two players shows both what was and could have been possible under the Soviet school given the right tool, but also shows the failure of the system to successfully  incorporate every tool into a true Soviet-style player-leader. This tradition of chess in the USSR, a game which five million Russians played, contributed immensely to the pressure on a man who wasn’t particularly enthused by the system which gave him his life. Chess had become the “intellectual identity” of the USSR of sorts – it was an attempt by the state to show how intellectual it’s ordinary citizens were. However, chess as a government structure did not adhere to the Marxist-Leninist ideology – given the fact that it’s premier players were given a life of luxury, it cannot be said that the USSR was truly socialist. For people like Spassky and Botvinnik, who came from fairly mediocre backgrounds to a life of extreme comfort by Soviet standards, the “class progression” of a capitalistic structure still existed. Given the popularity of the game, it is fair to say that any single working-class chess player could have risen up, given the talent and skillset. While chess was not a Marxist-Leninist programme, it was by far the most successful government-backed product of the USSR, with players originating from former Eastern Bloc countries still making up a vast majority of the top 100 chess players and Grandmasters in the world today. The game itself is still multiple times more popular in Russia than in the most prominent capitalist country, the United States. Chess in the USSR highlighted how the Soviet Republic wasn’t ready to be a fully socialist country. In Marxist theory, a key concept is the progression from capitalism to socialism to the Communist utopia. Therefore Soviet socialism wasn’t developed as an alternative to capitalism, but rather as a progression from capitalism, where individuals invest their efforts in progressing the state directly rather than progressing themselves, with the individual prowess achieved furthering the state as a whole. Success in chess highlighted how being less rigid in ideology could yield tremendous results, given the obvious intellectual talent of its people.

After losing the first game of the 24 game match and infamously not showing up for the second game, Fischer won in tremendous fashion, scoring the 12.5 points needed to win by game 21. Though Fischer was the favorite, it was the first time a non-Soviet player had held the World Champion title since it was formally created by FIDE, the Federation Internationale des Echecs. The iconic match remains relevant in popular culture, still being the subject of plays, movies, and books. The match result, however, was less important than one would imagine. Fischer failed to attempt to defend his title against the next Soviet challenger,  Anatoly Karpov, due to his mental state deteriorating, and faded into obscurity. After winning a rematch in 1992 with Spassky, who had left the Soviet Republic nearly 15 years prior, he spent the rest of his life living in political asylum, and died at the curiously fitting age of 64. Karpov and the infamous Garry Kasparov continued to dominate the chess world until the fall of the USSR, leaving Fischer’s three year blip the only period where a Soviet player was not World Champion in its existence. As for Spassky, he won the Soviet Championship (which was still the toughest tournament in the world) immediately after losing the match, and migrated to France shortly after.