They used to say in Moscow that the qualities that make a good chess player are the same qualities that make a good communist, reports Will Englund of the Baltimore Sun.
Perseverance, a belief in the power of logic to overcome obstacles, strategic thinking, patience, aggressiveness: All these were held up as Soviet ideals.So for 70 years the nation actively promoted chess as a symbol of Soviet prowess - "Take chess to the workers!" was a slogan coined in 1923 - although after the debacle of last August it could be argued that the Soviet Union produced more good chess players than it did good communists.
The domination of the chess world by Soviet players verged on the absolute. After World War II, the Soviet men's team won every championship competition that it entered. Since 1948, the world individual championship has been held exclusively by Soviet players, except for the years 1972-75, when the American Bobby Fischer wore the crown.
Half of the world's registered chess players - that is, those who play a recognized serious level - live in the 15 republics of what used to be the Soviet Union.
"What used to be" - those words are haunting chess in the Soviet part of the world today.
This is a country where every city has dozens of chess clubs - compared to our own Salt Lake City that hasn't had a chess club in years - where the best young recruits, as young as 10 years old, are taken to Moscow for training by the grandmasters.
What will happen to all that?
The answer is that the monolithic machine of Soviet chess is doomed. As with Olympic sports, there was a great engine there turning out world-class players, entirely financed by the government; but now, with the collapse of the old system, the resources and even the will for such an effort are disappearing.
The old socialist system of player development is simply not compatible with the dawning market reality - particularly in a country as poor as this one.
But the world's best players are there in Russia, and, coupled with widespread interest in the game, that means Russia and its immediate neighbors stand a good chance of remaining important chess powers for years to come.
"The position of Soviet chess is critical," said Mikhail Botvinnik, who became national champion in 1931 at the age of 20, was named a grandmaster in 1935 and was world champion between 1948 and 1963 (with two brief interruptions).
Today, Botvinnik, at the age of 81, is leading a drive to create the world's most advanced computer chess program and is also working to try to hold chess together in his own country.
"We have the problem of saving what we have and waiting for better economic times," he said. "To form a chess player requires 10 to 15 years. But, really, chess is very cheap. All it requires is a board and 16 pieces. I think we can be dominant."
If Russia is to remain pre-eminent in chess, it will be because of the hundreds of non-descript, ragged little clubs like the one up a flight of narrow stairs in a crumbling old building of Moscow's Petrovka Street.
Every night of the week nearly 200 players show up for chess. Retirees are there, and 6-year-old boys. Seven coaches teach classes at all levels, for which parents pay a nominal fee.
This is not a place for casual good-natured relaxation. Every night a tournament is going on. Each tournament lasts 12 weeks, and players who do well enough can hope to advance to the next level of play.
Yuri Leonov, who plays at the first level (the top of what might loosely be called the amateur scale), comes there for what communists might have considered good reasons, even though he himself is director of a commercial firm:
"The people are totally different here. Workers, engineers, journalists, students - I like them. We know each other."
But some of the other players bring a distinctively non-socialist bent to their pastime. They suggest they may be good chess players precisely because they are not good communists. Chess gives them a chance to live in a world of their own making - just what the Soviets spent 70 years trying to eradicate.
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