English Chess Forum

Canadian Chess Chat, October 1952, pp. 22-23 wrote: THE F.I.D.E. CONGRESS (By Robert G. Wade)

There were distinct hints of trouble over Canada's nomination of Bohatyrchuk for the title of international master. There is no issue on the question of his strength, but his actual international results are not impressive due to his not being a prize-winner in events that were colossally strong like Moscow, 1925, when the top players were Bogoljubow, Lasker and Capablanca. However, there is an underlying political issue as the U.S.S.R. regard Bohatirchuk as a renegade. It must be realized that a vote on the issue as to whether Bohatyrchuk is to be granted the title will resolve itself as follows:- against - all the Stalinist Communist countries plus those of the countries who are (a) unwilling to offend personal friends who are delegates from the above Communist countries, and (b) genuinely uncertain about the merits of the case, either politically or on strength as a chess player. It is quite impossible to have an objective discussion on this question. Your Federation must decide whether to split the F.I.D.E., without probable gain of principle, I personally judge him worthy of the title on the grounds of strength and do not wish to consider any political question. I would be in a minority. Is it worth fighting? There was no decision this year.

Chess, Vol. 18 No. 211, April 1953, p. 132 wrote: Canada had nominated Bohatyrchuk for the title of International Master. This nomination was discussed by the F.I.D.E. qualifications commission twice. Ragozin, representing the U.S.S.R., objected to the granting of the title, pointing out that Bohatyrchuk was regarded as a traitor to his country and to the war-time allies. That is one side of the case. Personally I think that it is irrelevant and outside the jurisdiction of an international organisation concerned with chess. If Bohatyrchuk had a clear claim to the title of international master, the Soviet Union’s objections would have to be overruled. There cannot be the least doubt that Bohatyrchuk is far stronger than many who have been granted the title of international master. The weakness of Canada’s case is that the title is granted for international results. Bohatyrchuk participated in only two genuine international events and did not have impressive results due to the fact that these two events were colossally strong. For instance, if my memory serves me right, Bohatyrchuk was 11th at Moscow, 1925—but what a field above him!

There is a resolution passed at the last F.I.D.E. meeting that claims for the master titles based entirely on pre-war record will not be considered after the next congress at Zurich early this September. Canada has to decide this year whether Bohatyrchuk’s record internationally warrants the F.I.D.E. taking a vote on the question in which the voters will be split into three groups—politically against, technically against and technically for. I hope that no one votes for Bohatyrchuk’s claim simply on political grounds.

I have few records with me as I meander around various Scottish clubs, so I cannot consult Bohatyrchuk’s in the U.S.S.R. But if he participated in three U.S.S.R. championship finals prior to the F.I.D.E. 1950 Congress, he automatically is entitled to the title of international master.

• 3= (from 13), 2nd championship, Petrograd 1923

• 3= (from 18), 3rd championship, Moscow 1924

• 1= (from 21), 5th championship, Moscow 1927

• 3= (from 18), 7th championship, Moscow 1931

• 8th (from 20), 8th championship, Leningrad 1933

• 3= (from 20), Leningrad 1935

Canadian Chess Chat, August-September 1954, p. 22 wrote: I am extremely happy to be able to report that Dr. F. Bohatirchuk is now an International Master. The Qualification committee had met on Sunday morning, Aug. 29, and I arrived in the afternoon to discover that Dr. Bohatirchuk had been turned down because his strength was considered insufficient. There was no disagreement over his right to be considered on his past record. I reopened his case under the heading 'New Business' and claimed that his record was better than that of either Goglidze or Verlinsky. Flohr denied this. Najdorf, who had previously spoken against Dr. Bohatirchuk, admitted that he knew nothing about Moscow 1925, or about Dr. Bohatirchuk's record prior to 1949. I proposed that Dr. Bohatirchuk be admitted now on condition that his record proves to be stronger than that of either Goglidze or Verlinsky. A special meeting of the qualification committee was called, in which Dr. Bohatirchuk was admitted, unanimously, with Russia abstaining from voting.

Bernard Freeman, excerpt from his report as FIDE Representative at the CFC AGM, pub. Canadian Chess Chat, October 1953, p. 8 wrote:
F. Bohatirchuk: his right to the title of International Chess Master has been presented, with all the required evidence, and will be decided upon at the Annual Meeting being held in Switzerland at the end of August. There is quite a large file on the subject. Over 40 letters sent and received to members of the qualification Committee and the Vice-Presidents, Marcel Berman (France), V. Ragozin (USSR), Ari Ilmakunna (Finland), Harold M. Phillips (New York), Dr. Acosta Silva (Venezuela), Dr. Juan Carlos Laurens (Argentina), J.L. Beale (Australia), F. Rogard (Sweden), Joseph Louma (Prague), etc.

celebrated spat in CHESS

Chess July/August/September 1949 Vol. 15 No. 168 p. 232-233 wrote: The Soviet chess masters’ extraordinary successes in recent tournaments, and especially Michael Botvinnik’s brilliant achievement, have attracted the attention of the whole world. Red propaganda attributes all these performances to the enormous development of cultural life in Russia which has been possible only within the Soviet structure of a proletarian State. Red propaganda claims that the USSR has no professional chess players, any more than professional footballers, athletes, etc. On paper, most Soviet chessplayers are engineers, teachers, clerks, etc., etc., for whom chess appears to be only a hobby. For example, Botvinnik is described as an engineering scientist who has done valuable work and even holds a degree “candidate of engineering”. If true, this is an exceptional case. I admit that Botvinnik is a man whose ability amounts to genius but he has had opportunities quite denied to the ordinary master.

When the Soviet government in the late 1920s began to recognize that chess could be a powerful weapon of propaganda it looked around for a young chess master that it could gamble on. Such a man was soon found, in the person of M. Botvinnik. He was given a special trainer who accompanied him in stays at first-class health resorts before each serious tournament. Money matters he could simply forget.

One must admit they chose well. Botvinnik was an ambitious young man and worked hard, soon becoming the leading Soviet master. But he was and of course is a chess professional; all other occupations are only hobbies. Chess has brought him two high Soviet honours, an automobile, and luxury in accommodation and earnings quite incompatible with those of an engineer of his qualifications. His 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.

As soon as the authorities saw that Botvinnik was justifying their plans, they began to finance other chess schemes. Promising young players received special attention. A young chess master without any special education could earn, before the War, 2,000 roubles a month – as much as a University professor. Prominent players, supplementing this by writing, etc., could double this or better. No wonder that nearly all the Soviet masters quit their ordinary jobs to become chess professionals. The radio and the press were always extolling their efforts as of high cultural importance. One had to have great strength of mind, in such circumstances, to remain at one’s job and treat chess as a game.

Thus as soon as a chess master is unfortunate enough to become a prominent one, there are only two choices, either to become a chess professional or to give up serious chess altogether. There is no middle line. Most people take the first choice. But a number of promising chess masters have been forced to give up their beloved hobby; I was one of them.

Until 1935 I managed, by hook or crook, to evade all the welter of minor competitions and play in just one tournament per year, usually the USSR Championship. I timed my annual holiday to coincide with this, so that my profession as a doctor suffered no harm. But after 1935 I was obliged to play in preparatory tournaments, trade union competitions, etc. When all these tournaments happened to be in the town I lived in, I could manage to play; but I firmly refused to go away more than once a year. In 1937, an article was printed in the official organ of the Ukrainian Government, Communist, which hinted plainly that my refusal to play in every tournament could be explained only on the grounds that I was unwilling to contribute to the progress of the young Ukrainian chess generation. Soon after, I was summoned to the Department of Propaganda of the Communist party. The head of the department read me a lecture about the significance which the party and the government attach to chess for the cultural development of the young and told me that my abstentions had produced a very bad impression. “Your victory over Botvinnik in the last tournament, which had such a great meaning for the prestige of the Soviet Union, could also be explained in a way unfavourable to you”, he added, with a hidden menace. My explanation that my career as a radiological doctor, teacher of radiology and scientist leave [sic] me very little time for chess did not impress him at all. He replied that the Soviet Union was at that time more interested in raising the cultural level of the masses and that I must contribute to this progress. When one recalls that 1937 was the year of the beginning of mass persecutions and purges, one can understand that neither the article nor the conversation left me feeling particularly happy. I saw that I had to give up chess; my infrequent appearances at chess tournaments only irritated my adversaries and furnished material for my enemies to use against me.

Early in 1938 I took part in my last tournament, at Kiev, and after that I abandoned the game. My scientific work in the field of cancer research helped me to shun all invitations. I was afraid of prosecution for some months, but fortunately the party’s organizations had much to do just then, and I was soon forgotten.

The declarations of red propagandists about the contribution of chess to the cultural development of the young generation are only a camouflage, under cover of which red propaganda pursues other aims. Soviet leaders are guided by a wise thought of a most reactionary Tsarist minister, Kasso. This minister was the first who permitted students to play chess because, he said, “Chess will divert them from politics”. Since these words were spoken, much water has flowed under the bridges – but the government, as before, is interested in controlling the thoughts of the younger generation. All means are justified by the great aim – complete subjugation of young brains to communistic ideas. Chess is used as an occupation which leaves little free time for unwanted thoughts.

Abroad, chess is used as a method of impressing intellectuals. The enormous diffusion of chess in the USSR is pictured as one indication of the high intellectual level of the masses which is, of course, “only possible in the Soviet state”. Nobody knows what immense sum of money is spent in backing up this dissemination of chess, what an army of chess professionals, organizers, secretaries, journalists, chessplayers, clerks, etc. is paid and fed to promote chess. Chess in the Soviet Union has ceased to be a game but is planned, directed, ordered by Communist super-brains. Many, no doubt, will appreciate this state support for their favourite game, but I, as a lover of chess, prefer to play when I want to, not when I am ordered by officials. To me, chess is only a beloved hobby, and I am not happy to see it become a matter of high policy.

Chess, Vol. 15 No. 173, Feb. 1950 , p. 95 wrote:Dear Mr. Wood,

In No. 6-8 of your journal you published a letter from the former well-known Ukrainian champion, Bogatyrchuk. I as well as other Czechoslovak masters met Mr. Bogatyrchuk in Prague in 1944 and have every reason to doubt his word and the integrity of his character. At the time he told us that he had not emigrated from the Soviet Union. He had ostensibly been ordered to stay behind to look after the wounded in Kiev hospital when the Germans occupied it, and—so he said—as an expert and chess champion he had no special difficulties from the Germans in carrying on his scientific and chess activities. Some months later we found these statements to be false. Mr. Bogatyrchuk was on the staff of the sadly renowned Quisling, General Vlasov. That means, he became a common traitor of his country at war, such as are punished in Britain by the severest sentences. The hatred of a traitor who staked everything on the Nazis and lost is also evident in the letter published in CHESS, containing a collection of untruths and halftruths.

Mr. Bogatyrchuk states that all outstanding Soviet chess players are professionals. He forgets that a number of top-ranking masters were decorated for outstanding feats. He closes his eyes to the fact that Botvinnik rarely takes part in tournaments because his job as a scientist does not permit it. It is of course true that some of the masters engage themselves in popularising chess and in organizing it on a mass basis, which requires a number of full-time organisers. It is true that for such organising work they are well paid, on a level with cultural workers. We might do well to compare this fact with the practice usual in Western countries, where chess champions are less well provided for. One well-known French master has been out of employment for considerable periods. Not because he does not want to work, but because he got the sack every time he wanted to take part in a tournament. The well-known champion Yates died in miserable circumstances, and so did others. The Soviet champions work for the good of all and are rewarded for it, chess champions in the West often have to supplement their earnings by playing for money in cafés.

Mr. Bogatyrchuk speaks of chess as a “red propaganda weapon”. Could he then explain why Soviet players take so little part in international tournaments, directing their main attention to chess at home? Still more ridiculous is the assertion that chess is supposed to distract people from politics. Chess is an excellent education towards logical and exact thinking, which is the best help in solving political problems. It is a generally known fact also in the West, that in the Soviet Union more than in any other country in the world every citizen is educated and led towards active political work. This fact is often used for anti-soviet propaganda, but as we can see paid agents provocateurs don’t hesitate to state the opposite if it happens to suit them.

Mr. Bogatyrchuk, however, climaxes all his lies by describing how Soviet chess players are being forced to play chess by the State and the Party and tells about being reproached for defeating Botvinnik. That means—according to other statements contained in the same letter—that in the Soviet Union people are forced against their will to lead a comfortable life with the pay of a university professor. And as to the second statement, this is proved absolutely ridiculous if we recall, e.g. the Groningen tournament, when Botvinnik was beaten by Kotov. It does not appear that the outcome of the game was “explained in a way unfavourable to Kotov”. Grandmaster Kotov was shortly after elected a member of the Moscow Soviet.

I am not particularly surprised at the slanderous lies contained in Bogatyrchuk’s letter. During the war, he was paid for his treason by the Nazis, to-day he is the lackey of those who engage in anti-soviet ravings in the hope of starting a new war. As we say: “Whose bread you eat, his song you sing.” Another hero of the anti-soviet crusade—Kravtchenko—can at least flatter Westerners by declaring that he “chose freedom”. Bogatyrchuk will hardly attempt to declare the same, for he chose the “freedom” of Hitler Nazism. We are, however, surprised that such a letter should appear in the organ of British chess. I convinced myself that the majority of British chess enthusiasts regard chess as a means of furthering understanding and friendship between the nations of the world. The publication of letters like this in CHESS certainly does not support that aim. The old British tradition of “giving every view a hearing” should be tempered with the words of the British Premier, Attlee: “Democracy yes, but not for the fascists!”

Sincerely yours
(Signed) L. Pachman
Prague, 22nd December, 1949.