My general premise is that sports and recreations are among the most revealing mirrors of many societies, offering a distinctive insight into social patterns, cultural values and even economic conditions. From this it follows that research on the USSR, using the sport-system as a case-study, may throw light on important characteristics of social processes in Soviet-type societies -- all the more so because the place of sport is evidently more central in the Soviet social system. This study attempts to show the extent to which the forms of recreation which developed in the USSR have or have not coincided with the predictions and aspirations of Marxist writers about playful activities in the society of the future. The study contains a historical account of sport in Russia and the USSR, with sections devoted to each of the main periods into which Russian and Soviet history is conventionally broken down according to the stages of its economic and political development. In addition, a special section is devoted to Soviet sport as s reflection of Soviet foreign policy. Sport is taken in the widest sense to include, too, the systems of physical education which developed in Russian and Soviet schools and colleges. The Introduction examines the various western and Soviet concepts of physical culture, sport and recreational activities.