Formation of Physical Training System in Militia Educational Institutions of Kharkiv in 1920–1930s

Abstract

The author has studied the main aspects of the development of professional training of cadets of Kharkiv police schools within 20 years: starting from 1921 up to 1941. It has been shown that physical training took a leading place from the first days of the formation of courses, and later of militia schools. There were some differences in this training during the indicated period. There was a search for optimal types of physical training along with the search for a basic form of training for militia officers in the first half of the 1920s. The essence of this evolution was to establish physical education as one of the basic areas of militia officers training, its transformation into a system, to increase the time for its implementation, to diversify the types of physical training, to increase its practical orientation and relationship with military training. Utopian and pseudo-innovative concepts of physical culture were rejected and the system of such training was created that had existed for many years. It provided certain standards (GPO and BGPO) for checking the level of preparedness of cadets. The cadets were also actively involved into physical training in summer camps with militia practitioners that brought them closer to the realities of militia life and was an attempt to introduce field gymnastics in specific natural conditions. The leadership of the state and the NKVS paid constant attention to the optimization of physical training, which was considered as an essential component of general military training and ideological education of the masses. The system of physical training created at that time and implemented in militia schools was characteristic for the totalitarian regime established in the Soviet state and was based on a directive system. Therefore, this training had certain elements of formalism and ostentation. It should be noted that physical training in Kharkiv militia schools in general, was at a fairly good level during the researched period, it was purposeful and systematic.