Communists and practices of youth physical education in the 1930s in the city of Rio de Janeiro³

Abstract

This study has sought to understand how communist representations of youth physical education were constructed, in contrast to other political trends in the 1930s, especially in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Although youths and their groups had different objectives and backgrounds, our research aimed to demonstrate that groups tutored by political movements, as is the case of the communist youth, sought − through physical education practices that shared and attracted the interests of this population − to legitimize their objectives by means of their growing involvement in groups of young athletes. In methodological terms, we conducted a documental research whose main sources were newspapers under the influence of the communist movement and, secondly, those produced by the “integralist” movement. We also used news stories from the mainstream press. This set of sources had been published mainly in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in whose archives we found 36 documents produced between 1930 and 1937, which were analyzed using the categories of youth and physical education. The study concluded that, for the communists, grassroots youth associations, fostered by the practice of amateur sports, were conducive to establish links between the communist youth and young athletes. The communists perceived the sports associations created by the youth as spaces of dispute with the “integralists” since the struggle took place not only in the political but also in the cultural field. Encouraging a broad front, impacting youth culture, getting closer to other youth experiences, such as sports groups, meant to prepare the revolution in both cultural and political aspects.

Youth; Communism; History of education; Physical education