The Soviet School of Chess Revisited (Part Two)
The Soviet School of Chess - as a subject in itself, not this particular book - is a vast topic that cannot possibly be covered by one author, so naturally I can only give an impression of it in these two relatively brief articles. An in-depth study of this subject would need to address the political context as well as the actual chess. (This has been attempted in various ways, none of them especially satisfactory.)
Vladimir Tukmakov (on the right) attempting to convince Kasparov, Geller and Psakhis that "Soviet Chess Organization" is more accurate than "Soviet Chess School".
In his book Modern Chess Preparation Vladimir Tukmakov writes the following: "The 'Soviet School of Chess' - in chess literature that's just as common a phrase as 'Marxist-Leninist Teachings' was in the everyday life of Soviet citizens." He continues: "That the word 'Soviet' in chess was for many decades synonymous with the very highest quality is a fact that's been repeatedly and convincingly confirmed."
The word 'Soviet' also, alas, became synonymous with the very poorest quality in other, more important, aspects of life. This isn't the place to discuss such matters in detail, so we'll look at the phrase The Soviet School of Chess itself. A school, as Tukmakov writes, "implies a group of followers united by a leader" - Botvinnik, of course, in this instance.
Lajos Portisch: "The Hungarian Botvinnik".
Tukmakov makes the case that players such as Gligoric and Portisch can be counted as followers of Botvinnik's methods rather more than, say, Geller or Korchnoi. He then goes on to say that the key word here is Organization rather than School. In this I believe Tukmakov is correct, and he points out that what he prefers to call the 'Soviet Chess Organization' was the matrix for the creation and sustenance of something which the Soviet Union always pretended didn't exist in their country: a class of essentially professional chess players, with an attendant professional apparatus - trainers, psychologists, fitness experts and so on.
Ilya Rabinovich 1891-1942
This may all seem rather abstract, so let me show you an impressive chess game won by Ilya Rabinovich, the co-champion (with Grigory Levenfish) of the Soviet Union in 1934-5. This game is from that event (and features in the Kotov and Yudovich book, of course).
To give the players some context, Rabinovich was one of the strongest Russian (and later, by definition, Soviet) players of that era. He had a positional style - this game, for example, could have been played by Petrosian much later - and was the author of the first book on the endgame in Russia (called, simply, The Endgame - the English translation is called The Russian Endgame Handbook and it was published in a revised edition by Mongoose Press in 2012).
As Edward Winter mentions in his Chess Notes (#7873) this book has the "rare, probably unique, distinction" of being praised by both Capablanca and Alekhine: by Capablanca in his Last Chess Lectures (in the chapter on 'Endgame Masters') and by Alekhine in My Best Games of Chess 1924-1937 - which is another way of saying that it's highly recommended.
The classic endgame manual for Soviet players.
In addition to winning the Soviet Championship in 1934/5, Rabinovich was also the champion of Leningrad (Petrograd) four times. He was caught in Leningrad during the terrible siege (September 1941 to January 1944) of the Second World War - although evacuated in 1942, he died of malnutrition in Perm the same year.
The Siege of Leningrad
(Incidentally, a number of famous players - natives of Leningrad, of course - were connected with this siege: Korchnoi writes of his childhood there during this time in Chess is My Life (Batsford 1977), and Boris Spassky learned chess as he was evacuated by train from the siege at the age of five. Another famous player of that time who survived the siege was Peter Romanovsky: he was found semi-conscious and starving at his home there in the winter of 1941-2. His entire family perished in the siege.)
Peter Romanovsky: Survivor of the Siege of Leningrad
This may seem slightly off-topic, but the Second World War was, of course, a major event for Russians of that generation (and not only for that generation) - and we in the West should never forget that it was the Soviets who effectively destroyed the military machine of the Third Reich.
It isn't too difficult to observe that this catastrophic event also had an effect on the psychology of Soviet chess players.
Sergey Belavenets 1910-1942
Rabinovich's opponent, Sergey Belavenets, was from Smolensk. He was =1st with Vasily Smyslov in the Moscow Championship of 1938. He died at the age of 31, fighting for the Soviet Army in the battle for Staraya Russa. Incidentally, he was a close friend of Kotov's co-author, Mikhail Yudovich.
Let's take a closer look at the game - you can play through it and check the notes below as you do so:
The opening would (these days) be called an Old Benoni. White avoids playing Pc2-c4 as c4 may be a useful square for a Knight later (e.g. in the standard manoeuvre Nf3-d2-c4). Black would play 4...Be7 today, with the normal Old Benoni idea of playing ...Be7-g5 trading the dark-squared Bishops (something to be desired when all of your central pawns are on dark squares). Belavenets's 6.Qd2 is a slight error - it is better to play 6.f3 and then 7.Qd2; but 9.f3 is a definite mistake - possibly White thought that the Black Knight on e3 would be vulnerable.
9...Kf7! is a nice move - Black's King is secure here and the White Bb5 may become a liability later.
13.Bd3 - as 13...a6 beckoned; this wasn't playable on move 12 because after 12...a6 13.Bd3 b5 14.g5! fxg5 15.Qe3 and the Bh6 is loose - hence 12...Kg7.
Yes - 16...b5! was a very nice move. The beauty is in the variation 17.axb5 Ra7! when 18.bxa6 Nxa6 19.Bxa6 Qb6! leads to role reversal - White is the one who's pinned on the a-file.
21...Kh8 - I like the way Rabinovich makes a series of unassuming retreating moves and White's position seems to fall apart of its own accord, recalling Petrosian at his "mysterious" best.
24...Qc7 - Rabinovich plays in the old Arabic style, before European rules were added and the pieces could only move to a very limited number of squares: 8...Bg7, 9...Bh6; 10...Kf7, 11...Kg7; 14...Qc7, 24...Qc7 and later 29...Qd8 - the effect is very pleasing.
35...Bf8 - Rather a cruel move - the idea is to play ...Be7 and ...h6, and there is nothing White can do about it. White's last move is a blunder, but otherwise it would be a slow positional crush.
Alexander Kotov: Bobby Fischer called him "the commissar of Soviet chess".
Kotov and Yudovich quote Levenfish's comment: "Black's combinational play on two flanks makes an artistic impression". Yes, White made some mistakes and it wasn't really a fight, but Black's clinical play exploited White's errors brilliantly in the style of Capablanca and Petrosian.
Rauzer's in-depth analysis of a sharp line of the Nimzo-Indian Defence (covered in Part One) and this game between Sergey Belavenets and Ilya Rabinovich from the Ninth Soviet Championship are mere glimpses from the pages (and history) of the Soviet School of Chess - or the Soviet Chess Organization, if you prefer. Even now, the shadow of this movement influences contemporary chess.
