The Selection and Training of Sport Cadres in China, 1949-1952
LI Zhaoxu

Shenzhen University

Abstract

When People^s Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949, its sport sector, nearly ruined in the civil war, faced severe deficiency in material and financial resources, personnel, expertise and experience. As people^s poor health condition posed a formidable challenge to social development and people^s well-being, sport was regarded as one of the urgent solutions. In such context, the Communist Party of China (CPC) learned from the sport sector of Soviet Union, placing the selection and training of sport cadres (both full-time and amateur) at high priority. As early as in the year 1949, the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) represented the CPC to rally sport experts and re-organized the previous China National Amateur Athletic Federation into the All-China Sports Federation (ACSF), whose committee covered delegates from all regions and people^s organizations from all walks of life. Meanwhile, a number of cadres from other sectors were re-positioned to ACSF^s branches at all levels to mitigate sport personnel deficiency. That meant the CPC assured its political leadership in sport sector while promoting mass sports to the broadest extent. Besides giving full play to sport experts and full-time cadres, short-term sport training programs were carried out in full swing to cultivate a large number of amateur sport cadres from the grassroot. Therefore, by the inauguration of the General Administration of Sport in 1952, the basic organizational framework of sport sector was in place, and mass sport in China had witnessed rapid progress. All that laid a solid foundation for the later advancement in both competitive and mass sport.

Keywords: Communist Party of China- Chinese mass sport- sport cadre- training of professionals- All-China Sports Federation

Topic: Elite and mass sports development