POLITICAL PAWNS
"Gens Una Sumus" -- we are all one -- is the motto of FIDE, the
world chess body. Yet the tradition that chess should be above
politics eroded during the Cold War.
At the 1974 Chess Olympiad in France each team signed a pledge to
play against any other country. Then Rhodesia and South Africa were
expelled for purely political reasons and FIDE started down a slippery
slope. In 1986 Israel was banned from the Olympiad in the United Arab
Emirates.
FIDE also voted not to accredit an international tournament if a
master played against the wishes of his own chess federation. In
effect, this destroyed a standard of excellence and reduced players to
mere political pawns.
In an open letter Czech grandmaster Ludek Pachman recalled his
imprisonment "with a broken skull and backbone, hovering between life
and death, after a six-week hunger strike." His crime? Protesting the
Soviet occupation of his homeland.
His book "Checkmate in Prague: Memoirs of a Grandmaster" (1975) is
a vivid chronicle of his Kafkaesque battle with bureaucracy, arrest
and "trial."
Upon his release Pachman settled in Solingen, West Germany and
organized an international tourney in 1974. But at the last moment he
was excluded when both Russia and East Germany threatened to withdraw.
After that shameful incident Pachman was admitted to the West German
chess team and moved to Berlin where he died at 78 in 2003.
He noted: "I consider myself forced to leave the club and the town
and to settle down elsewhere. Players want to devote themselves to
their beautiful game and are entitled to their desire to have no
interference from the uproar of this world. I was no longer invited to
big matches. Others are not prepared to separate chess from politics.
"In my initial disillusionment I wanted to give up chess and look
for a different vocation, but I have decided against this. It is not
so easy to write off 30 years of one=92s life and I am convinced that I
am still able to play well. Furthermore, it would only prove that
boycotts, blackmail, and arrogant despotism would emerge victorious.
"The day after tomorrow demands might be made that all masters
must acknowledge only one ideology or one religion. Freedom and
justice are usually destroyed in small steps.
"For this reason I turn to chess friends with a request: to prevent
situations like this one in Solingen in the future and to give me the
op****tunity to be defeated at the board instead of being boycotted."
(Reprinted from EVANS ON CHESS, courtesy of the author.)
parrthenon@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> THE WAY IT WAS
>
>
> >This, from a Soviet defector, sup****ts the notion that
> Botvinnik was, at least to some extent, controlling chess
> information in Russia.> -- Taylor Kingston
>
> There was also force or its threat -- in one
> form or another -- employed by both Botvinnik and
> Karpov during their reigns. Those who refused to
> contribute to the "collective" could be punished.
>
> One handy weapon, which could lead to outright
> starvation of one's family, was loss of ration cards.
> Dogs and cats disappeared from the streets of Moscow
> in the late 1940s. You did as Botvinnik wished or
> your children might die from malnutrition. Times were
> not quite so dire during Karpov's time, but Soviet
> citizens did not eat well back then, either.
>
> Concerning Bogatyrchuk, there was a nasty attack
> on him by "Ludek Pachman" in the British Chess
> Magazine when Pachman was still a dedicated
> Stalinist. Interestingly, the English in the attack
> was excellent; and from Pachman's anguished written
> appeals after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia,
> we know that he wrote pidgin English. His book
> CHECKMATE IN PRAGUE: THE MEMOIRS OF A
> GRANDMASTER (1975) written after he was thrown
> in prison for breaking with the party line still makes
> for interesting reading. Pachman also was the target
> of a Soviet boycott and spent his last days in Berlin.
>
> So, then, Bogatyrchuk was a defector who
> prompted the Soviet propaganda machine into action
> in an attempt to discredit him. In fact, it was an
> example of the kind of stuff offered here recently by
> Juergen, our jerkin' gherkin, when attacking Korchnoi.
> The very fact of the bogus attacks on Bogatyrchuk
> lend his testimony considerable plausibility.
>
> Yours, Larry Parr
>
>
> ttk5...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> > On May 7, 6:48?am, David Richerby <dav...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > wrote:
> > > <ttk5...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > > > A particularly relevant quote from the Winter article is this,
> > > > written by Bohatirchuk in 1949:
> > >
> > > > "[Botvinnik's] trainer (now perhaps a whole retinue of trainers)
> > > > works out theoretical novelties for him and tests them in play
with
> > > > other masters; publication of these trial games is forbidden until
> > > > Botvinnik uses that particular variation."
> > >
> > > > This, from a Soviet defector, sup****ts the notion that Botvinnik
> > > > was, at least to some extent, controlling chess information in
Russi=
a.
> > >
> > > Sure but that's standard stuff, surely? ?Doesn't every top-ten
player
> > > do that, except that these days, the trial games are probably
against
> > > the computer?
> >
> > Well, it was not standard for most masters in Botvinnik's day,
> > whether Soviet or Western, to have "a retinue of trainers." So in that
> > sense he enjoyed a special privilege. As far as secret trial games are
> > concerned, yes, that was and is quite common. I cited the passage only
> > because, in saying "publication of these trial games is forbidden," it
> > provided some sup****t, however minor, to the notion that Botvinnik was
> > controlling the flow of chess information.
|
