Qualitative and quantitative characteristics of staff in the physical culture sphere in Western Siberia in the 1930s

The process of physical education formation in Western Siberia dates back to the 1920s. Massive involvement of various categories of citizens in the military and physical training necessitated relevant personnel training in the region. The main method of instructors' and organizers' training in Western Siberia in the 1920s and 1930s was training courses suitable to the educational level of the absolute majority of the staff. Expansion of sport work in the 1930s, due to economical and political reasons, demanded to increase the staff and the quality of their training. The capacity of the Physical Culture College that opened in Novosibirsk in 1930 did not meet the region's need in specialists of this qualification. The level of demand for physical education staff during the decade was very high. In 1933, some state steps were made to ensure a certain social welfare level of physical culture specialists, but they did not increase the number of the staff. In the 1930s, the professional level of physical education specialists was determined both by their knowledge and skills in the field of physical culture (introduction of categories) and by their ideological and political background. Higher ideological level of physical culture specialists was determined by the work of sport organisations done not only in the sphere of physical education, but also in the sphere of military and patriotic education of soviet citizens, and was actual and timely. Komsomol played an active role in the organisation of physical education among citizens, mainly in the countryside. Specialists of physical training in the countryside, with their deficit, had the lowest qualification level, while university professors had the highest one. However, the basis of full time university employees in the 1930s consisted of workers with special education, not higher than the secondary one. The deficit of sport workers in Western Siberia was due to the influence of state events, like turnover, employees' job change, "staff cleaning", etc., typical to that period of time. The frequent change of administration did not allow to carry out stable work in the region. From the beginning of the 1940s, trade union sport organisations, having reduced the administrative apparatus, relied on the work of freelancers. But the war began and delayed further reforms in the sphere of physical culture and sport unions restructuring. Despite some drawbacks in personnel policy, the employees of the sphere were able to organise mass training of the USSR citizens and to get them ready for the titanic work and defence of the state against the fascist occupation.

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