Soviet School of Chess

For four decades - barring the brief intervention of Bobby Fischer - the Soviet Union dominated world chess and Russian grandmasters continue to lead the world even after the demise of the country they once represented. This is an account of the hegemony of the most powerful state-supported chess juggernaut ever created, written at the apex of Soviet success. The book outlines the triumphs achieved by the Stalin-inspired drive to establish the USSR as the planet's leading chess dynamo. This is a hymn to the socialist utopia in which the goal of sporting success in general and chess victory in particular replace religion as the opium of the masses. The Soviet School of Chess is the Bible which recounts this movement, written by two experts who were positioned at the very heart of this grandiose initiative. Alexander Kotov represented the USSR in two World Championship Candidates Tournaments and went on to become a senior official of the Soviet Chess Federation. Mikhail Yudovich was a chess journalist and Correspondence Chess Grandmaster.

I would reccomend this book to anyone who is interested in studying and improving their chess. It gives a wonderfully interesting history of the soviet masters, with plenty of illustrative games. Then it also opens your eyes to the way that the top soviets increased their strength. I personally got more from this book than I did from the Think Like a Grandmaster series. afterwards i took a new look at the board in familiar opennings and thought of new ideas, and when I later did alittle research on them, I found that they were used by many of the top grandmasters of the 60's but have since gone out of fashion. the only reason that I didn't give it 5 stars, is cause comrad Kotov's voice gets on my nerves a little too much. I little bit too pro communism for my taste.

the authors were at the very centre of the soviet chess programme and here they give thumbnail sketches of all the top russian champions and grandmasters as well as useful insights into the broader chess movement supported by the state which backed them up. the book is also valuable as an insight into soviet society and the type of conformism it demanded-for example petrosian is criticised for lack of fighting spirit-actually he had his own way of fighting and later became world chess champion.this edition is published by hardinge simpole press.

This book is an interesting combination of both quality games and history. It traces the development of the soviet chess shool right from the times of petrov down to the big k`s. Has very interesting games from all the big soviet players like petrov,chigorin,botvinnik,tal,kasparov,karpov to mention a few. Makes an interesting commentary on their styles of play, tries to analyze their weakpoints and gives some excellent games with detailed analysis. Back in the 80`S when i first learnt chess, i found it one of the most intersting books which made me delve deeper into chess. Believe me, buy this book and i assure you that you wouldnt want to part with it for a fortune. One of the gems of the Mir publishers