Ch 5: From running shoes to rifles, thestory of the Barcelona 1936 popular

Olympics

Adolf Hitler stood in the stands at Berlin in 1936, expecting to witness the domination of his Aryan athletes and the smooth and efficient functioning of his regime’s carefully planned exhibition of superiority. To his chagrin, the enduring image that the world took from the Berlin games was not one of Aryan domination, nor of Nazi efficiency. Rather the world watched as Jesse Owens, the black son of Alabama sharecroppers and grandson of a slave, collected 4 gold medals. This was an unprecedented achievement for an athlete of any colour1. When the world remembers 1936, it remembers Owens, not the Aryans whom he defeated (or those who dominated many other events). The Nazis may have failed to make the 1936 Olympics “their” event, butthe truly anti-fascist alternative has endured even less in the popular recollection. 30 years after the closing ceremony at Berlin saw the “youth of the world” make varying attempts at a raised arm salute to the Fuhrer of Germany, Owens had filed for bankruptcy, Hitler was long dead and the Olympics were changed forever. What has not enjoyed as much attention in the historical or popular record is the movement to stage an alternative “popular” Olympics in Barcelona to reclaim the spirit of fraternity and equality which seemed to have been lost in the inter war scramble for technological, industrial and physical advances.  1936 was the year that the Olympics became an event of global importance and one dripping with nationalist zeal. Despite the best efforts of Catalonia to the contrary, the Europe of 1936 was not headed down a path of popular frontism and mutual understanding. Sports took a step towards separating people, not uniting them.

The 1936 Berlin games offer an excellent example of the gap between history and popular legend. The schoolbook version offers the

1 a performance not equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same 4 events at the 1984 Summer Olympics

heartwarming story of Luz Long and Jesse Owens. The enduring legend of the games tells of how Long, the platonically Aryan German long jumper, undermined the attempts of the Judge to disqualify the Slave’sgrandson. The legend continues that with Owen’s having been judged to have taken off too late on his first two jumps, Long approached Owens to ensure he was able to register a qualifying leap. In the Owens’ ownwords: ‘"he helped me measure a foot back of the takeoff board — and then I came down and I hit between these two marks. And therefore I qualified. And that led to the victory in the running broad jump [longjump]"2. As with many such heartwarming tales, this legend seems to have largely been constructed after the fact. When directly questioned, Owens admitted that the story was apocryphal. Long was unable to confirm or deny the legend having died in 1943 fighting in awar which he seems to have taken little interest in (Long’s correspondence with Owens after the games and their friendship is not in doubt), fighting for an ideology which the world had become intimately familiar with at the Berlin games. Regardless of the veracity of this anecdote, these were a games that would go down in history as the games of swastikas and soldiers. At the time Europe used the games to justify non-intervention and to marvel at Nazi “efficiency”. Later they would look back and see fascist discipline ina different light. Race was very much at the forefront of the Nazi show in Berlin, as was nation and nationalism. Before Europe spiraled into armed conflict and took the world with it, the same parties and competing ideologies battled in the events of the Olympiad.

The popular Olympics that Barcelona proposed werre not only constructed against the manipulation of sport by the European right, they also stood in contrast to the attempts of the communist left to dominate the sporting activities of the working classes in order to prove their own political point. The Comintern funded sportintern movement aimed to set up a parallel sporting structure which would teach the working classes solidarity and class consciousness through sport. Much like the Berlin Olympics, participation would be limited along ideological criteria (in this case class and political persuasion). Like Berlin, the goal of the event was not to establish

2 Greenspan, Bud. Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin, 1964.

the best performance but to reinforce a political narrative with a medium that had a broad appeal. The workers’ sport movement attempted to establish itself as an alternative to the Berlin games but, given its equally exclusive ideology, it failed to do so. Into the gap between Bolshevism and Berlin stepped Barcelona. The Popular Olympics were positioned in between the elite and workerist tendencies and aimed to welcome participants regardless of class, race or nation. In placing themselves between extremes and at the forefront of a new identity, the popular Olympics offered a more all-embracing alternative to the sectarian tendencies of sport. The Barcelona games stood in contrast to both those in Berlin and those later held in Antwerp under the auspices of the Workers’ sport movement as a truly sporting event which embraced the idea of the expression of identity through the body. The games would include elite and club athletes and incorporate folklore and art as well as athletics. The popular games asserted the right of people to establish their own identity and to participate in their own government. This nationalist, pan leftist positioning of the games was unique in the period and stands out as such. The popular games proposed an embracing identity and a shared goal of creating a more tolerant, progressive and heterogeneous futurethrough sport.

Famed British leftist and member of the international brigades George Orwell claimed that sport was merely “war without the shooting”3. Whilst there is much to disagree with in this oversimplification, the year 1936 seems to also provide much evidence to support it. From Orwell’s position in the United Kingdom, he saw a Europe which was deeply divided but still scarred by the cataclysmic conflict of two decades earlier and a non-intervention pact which let the far right take power and face very few real consequences, it seemed as if the only place democracy stood up for itself was on the field of play. Notonly did Hitler hold a “coming out party” for his attempts at dominating Europe and the world at the Berlin games but it was in thissame sporting moment that the government of Catalonia took a vanguard role in the popular front and to lead a more fraternal sporting movement. Very soon, both would be engaged in the kind of war which 3 Orwell, G. “The Sporting Spirit.” The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell 4 (1968): 1945–50.

didn’t restrict shooting to the football pitch. Just as the politicalmission of the Esquerra Republicana Catalunya (ERC) was foiled by nationalist violence, so was its sporting mission with the military coup occurring on the same day as the ill-fated Olympiad. Many of the organizers of the events had slept the night before in the stadium andawoken to the sound of gunshots below them in the city. Ironically their absence may have spared them from the worst of the rebels’ attempts to eliminate the Catalan left from Spain. When the knocks came on their doors they were nowhere to be found. At least in this fashion the games did strike a blow for the popular front. The athletes, in attendance from all over the world, were caught up in thechaos. Many waited weeks before escaping from the port or joining the militia to defend the popular government from the coup.  Despite the fact that the games never occurred, their planning, funding and organization provides us with a fertile ground for researching Catalanidentity, “enlightened patriotism” and sports as a means of creating and reinforcing it.

The Nazi propaganda machine embraced the potential of the games with television cameras clustered around the stadium in an unprecedented number, a daily Olympic newspaper, a huge press corps, a dedicated stadium and Olympic village and the pageantry of flames and flags which we have come to associate with the modern games. However the propaganda opportunities afforded by such a large gathering of athletes from around the world were not lost on those whose attitudes were entirely more benign and fraternal than the nationalists and racialist aims of those who organized the Berlin Games. However the Popular Olympics were not an Olympiad on the scale of the Berlin games. A direct comparison is perhaps unjust and certainly will alwaysreflect poorly on the Catalan-run games. Where Hitler’s regime had planned for years, the Barcelona games came together in a matter of weeks. The budget for the latter was hastily cobbled together from French, Spanish and Catalan governments. Athletes stayed, not in an Olympic village but in corners and on couches of local volunteers. Thecompetitors would not only be the strongest and fastest but the peoplewho wished to participate. Alongside the 100m and the long jump there would be presentations of folk stories, dancing and singing. Competitors would hail not just from the countries of Europe but also

from the nations that fell in the gaps between countries. The studentsof the world and displaced Jews of Europe would compete alongside Catalonia, France and the UK.

The stadium which would have hosted the events was recycled from Barcelona’s better-funded exposition of the previous decade. The Catalan bourgeoisie had long been keen on bringing the games to the city and the development of facilities was one of their early attemptsto attract the IOC. Ironically the games that came closest to occurring were not aimed at boosting the economy or profile of the city in the sense that these “good citizens” had in mind when creatingplans for such events decades before. These games not only differed from Berlin in their make-up and funding but also in their spirit. Thezeitgeist of this event was not “record performance but shared experience, not conflict but community. Rather than proving the inherent superiority of one nation or race they aimed to bring all nations and races closer together.

The limited historiography on the events of the popular Olympics is surprising; perhaps the failure of the events to occur as planned has contributed to this general lack of attention. The few brief articles in English add little to the historiography other than a basic description of the events4. Gounot, amongst others, has approached the games from the perspective of a history of left wing sport and thus seen them as a part of a worker’s sports narrative as opposed to the begging of a popular sports movement5. The confusion between workers’ sport and popular sport outside of Catalonia contributed to the often cited image of the games as little more than a Muscovite rally. This misunderstanding is often repeated in broader histories of the Olympicmovement and histories of Catalonia. It was also common in the contemporary press where the narrative of a “red” Olympics was mobilized as a criticism of the games. However the popular Olympics were emphatically not part of the workers sport movement. Just as the ERC was not controlled by Moscow, their games were not organized by the sportintern and the organizers went out of their way to state that4 Martin, Paul. “Spain’s Other Olympics.” History Today 42 (August 1, 1992).5 Gounot, A. “El Proyecto de La Olimpiada Popular de Barcelona (1936), Entre Comunismo Internacional Y Republicanismo Regional.” Cultura, Ciencia Y Deporte, no. 3 (2005): 115.

the games were “popular, free from profiteering influences and opposedto war, fascism and other forces opposed to the common values of humanity”6 anyone who asserted that the games were a “red” Olympiad was “knowingly lying”7. The agenda and ideology of the games was entirely Catalan and as distinct from that of Moscow as it was from Berlin.

The most complete accounts of the popular games are those of Catalan academics writing with the support of Catalan grants and in Catalan universities as the history of the popular games has been recovered since the more recent Barcelona Olympics8. Notable as leaders of this tendency are Pujadas and Santacana and their colleagues in the Grup deRecerca i Innovació sobre Esport i Societat (GRIES )9. Their work givesa clear and well researched analysis of the games as well as dismissing the often repeated myth that the games were a “worker’s Olympics”. This opinion is supported by the statistical research of Colomé and Sureda with their analysis of funding and composition of the events. Aside from these relatively few works there is a paucity of literature on the popular Olympics. Despite their unique positioning in terms of nationalism and identity, few academics have written on the subject of the games that tried to redefine the manipulation of sport in an increasingly totalitarian Europe.

National identity, as we have seen, relies on the idea of a community which is perceived to exist between individuals who may never meet butperceive a common set of interests and values. Certain types of nationalists will paint this identity as primordial. Consequently, membership of one nation is incompatible with membership of the neighbouring nations. These neighbours are often attributed negative characteristics directly opposite to the positive values associated with the nation in question. The nation is thus defined through a 6 “Esport.” Justicia Social, May 25, 1936.7 Martín, Andrés. Mundo Obrero, June 29, 1936.8 Jordi Mercader. “The Games after Sixty Six Years Wait.” Olympic Review, no. 233 (March 1987).9 Pujadas, X., and C. Santacana. “L’altra Olimpiada.” Barcelona “36. Barcelona, Llibresde l”Index, 1990.Xavier Pujadas, and Santacana, Carles. “Les Annees Trente  et La Crise de L’olympisme. La Proposition de L’olympiade Populaire de Barcelone (1036),” Xavier Pujadas. Catalunya I L’olimpisme. COC Catalan, 2006.

process of othering. Sports have often been used to reinforce this narrative of superiority and conflict, as illustrated by the Nazi manipulation of the 1936 games. Sports, as an allegory for war, playeda huge part in constructing the Aryan superiority which was a cornerstone of the third Reich. What I shall argue is that the Barcelona Olympiad was used differently, in a spirit more akin to thatwhich De Coubertin intended for the Olympic movement, one of fraternalcompetition, not mortal combat.

We have described nations as constructed communities, it follows that an international identity can be created if one can facilitate the imagination of bonds between people spread across many nations. My argument is that the popular front represented an alternative identityto that of exclusive nationalism, similar to the “enlightened patriotism” of De Coubertin. Here the community was international, nations provided the variety but the national identities were subject to the shared goals which united the movement: Social justice and opposition to fascism. The popular Olympics of 1936 were to be an illustration of fraternal competition amongst brother nations, not a celebration of the superiority of one race or state (as was the case in Berlin) or of one Ideology (as was the case for the workers’ games).  The nature of nationalism was at play in these Olympiads. Berlin promoted an exclusive nationalism that was opposed by the fraternal and inclusive national identity at the base of the popular games. The Workers’ games promoted the idea of an international solidarity around class issues and Marxist Leninist ideology. The use of sports to create ties and reinforce alliances was nothing new, the British middle classes had built their education system on similar principles, through exclusive sports organizations and public school matches. Similarly, the communists, ever late to the cultural party, had created their own sports movement with the Comintern after decadesof denying the value of sport. What made the Barcelona Olympics of interest was their perspective: People were bought together through sport and there was a basic agreement about politics. In other events people came together based on their politics to compete, or competed in order to prove their superiority.

This chapter will investigate the meaning of the popular Olympic Gamesfor the creation of Catalan identity, the situation of the Catalan nation in a greater international narrative and sports as a means of diplomacy. Whilst primarily giving another example of the value that second republic Catalonia placed on sport, I wish to investigate the implications of the pan leftist ideology of popular frontism for national and international identity.  In doing so I hope that it will illustrate the possibility of a nationalism which only exists within agreater international sphere, not in opposition to other nationalisms but rather in fraternity with other nations which together form a progressive alliance.  Miró termed himself "an international Catalan”10

and this sense of participating in a larger picture is something that has long been integral to Catalan national identity. As a small nationwith little military or geopolitical significance the Catalans have tended to latch on to larger transnational currents in order to allow them to fit into the bigger picture11.  This transnational identity hasbeen characterized by the Atlantic trade with South America, by art and culture and by religion and rights as well as the popular front opposition to fascism. Catalan national identity has always been constructed as much in harmony with transnational identities as against a somewhat internally focused Spanishness. Indeed the Catalan identity we see in the games was not entirely opposed to Madrid’s help(the games received significant financial support from the government in Madrid) but it asserted an autonomous Catalaness within an international community of states and nations that included Spain. Theidentity proposed by the popular Olympiad spoke to Europe and to Madrid but from an autonomous and independent Barcelona.

The Popular Front is an important point of reference for this chapter.It was within this network and explicitly using this language that thepopular Olympics existed. The Popular Front was formed when the Comintern revised its analysis of fascism. Before the 1930s Fascism had been seen as merely another form of bourgeois domination and thus no more or less abhorrent than any other form of non-Marxist

10 Letter from Motrig to Ricart 18th July 1920 quoted in Goodwin, Godfrey. The Burlington Magazine 129, no. 1016 (November 1987): 751-752.  11 Marti Anglada. “Catalonia, Navigating through Friendly International Waters.” Catalan International View, no. 17 (Spring 2014): 34–37.

government. The example of the fratricidal conflicts in the left allowing a rightist victory in Germany, and the repercussions of this for the left, led to fascism being redefined as “the most open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary… elements of finance capital”12. Fighting fascism thus became a priority for all of the left. The goal was to keep the fascists out of power and this was to be achieved with broad, center left alliances between bourgeois socialists and radical communists to provide the necessary majority required to keep the right out of power. The Popular front took shape around the government of Léon Blum in Paris. Blum’s support base was formed of an alliance between socialists and communists supported by the USSR. This popular front ideology had impact across Europe and theworld, inspiring similar alliances in the UK, Chile and across EasternEurope. This was also the ideology behind the “frente popular” government that was forged in the Asturias miner’s uprising of 1934 and that controlled Madrid from February 1936 under Manuel Azaña. The allianceof the left had long been the foundation of the ERC in Barcelona even before the Comintern had made it official policy. As such Catalonia was something of a leader with its similar (if not exactly the same) coalition and the ERC was able to expand its ideological base further and slot into the popular front easily. Popular front governments across Europe shared more than just a name. Policies, identities and agendas were spread across borders and influenced politics through opposition as well as government. Whilst the foundation of the front was opposition (to fascism) it also had a positive progressive agenda of education and emancipation of the working classes that was well served by physical culture and sport. This international movement which crossed class and ideological lines played a vital role in laying down the ground work for an international, cross class Olympiad. It was through these popular governments in Madrid and Parisas well as in Barcelona that the games was funded and organized and thus without understanding the popular front, we cannot understand thepopular Olympics.

Catalonia's Esquerra Republicana Catalunya had been at the forefront of these cross class alliance systems long before Moscow got behind them.12 Jackson, J. The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy, 1934-38. Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Formed in 1931, the ERC predated the popular front but its compositionand goals were very close to those of this later pan-leftist alliance.The ERC itself was not a single political entity but a coalition whichcame together over a shared goal of an autonomous, republican and leftist Catalonia. This ability to put differences aside and work towards a common goal was the cornerstone of both the ERC and the popular front. Later, under the auspices of the popular front, the ERCwould extend its capacity to cooperate even further with the inclusionof the anarchists and the socialist PSUC in governance. Although the ERC resembled Blum’s government there were important differences. The pre popular front ERC combined a Catalan national focus and excluded the Comintern affiliated Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (PSUC).  It shared an anti-fascist stance with the other popular frontgovernments but was in no way aligned with or directed from Moscow. The ERC and the popular front were united in many ways and open to cooperation. This was by no means limited to physical culture but sucha relationship allowed for the games to be funded from Madrid and Paris as well as Barcelona. The popular front and the ERC stood together in opposition to fascism and its attempts to dominate the European political, as well as sporting, landscape.

The games served as a physical illustration that the popular front could rally its support from around Europe and that it was more than just a rhetorical alliance. Undoubtedly the regime in Berlin aimed to use the Berlin games to illustrate that they were physically and logistically leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of Europe. Should there be any opposition to Nazi Germany; the Olympiad would serve as an illustration that armed conflict could only result in a victory forHitler’s regime. The popular games served to somewhat counteract this narrative. They were a physical illustration that the popular front could rally its support from around Europe and that it was more than just a rhetorical alliance. Through the Popular Olympics anti fascism would take on a new image, that of healthy and active young people, united in their pursuit of a better future and rejection of a hateful ideology.

The ERC was far from the only left wing political party or organization in Catalonia, indeed for many of the working class it was

not the primary one. For many of those in Catalan factories and building sights, as well as those without steady employment, anarchismwas the political ideology which motivated them and anarchist organizations were the ones which they most frequently encountered. Anarchist organization reached deep into the working class neighbourhoods and did much of the work of the state. Education, social security and childcare were provided by neighbourhood committees based in the anarcho syndicalist CNT. There were also independent socialist and communist parties in Catalonia although theyenjoyed less popularity than the anarchists and the ERC aside from their strength in certain trade unions. What is of importance in this chapter is that the ERC attempted to reach into Barcelona’s poorest neighbourhoods through sport. Often the working class Barris were constructed as dens of iniquity. As much as the popular Olympics spoketo the world, they also spoke to those closest to home. Despite the initial dislike for sports exhibited by the CNT’s doctrinaire libertarian leadership, the Catalan working classes displayed a strongand lasting desire to both spectate and participate, eventually leading the libertarian left to embrace sport. Soon after this it began to embrace other elements of the popular front. The pan leftismand openness of the games aimed to appeal to left wing governments across Europe and to the left wing groups outside of the ERC in Catalonia. Sport was a universal language and the ERC hoped to take advantage of this to bridge many divides.

The middle classes of Catalonia had supported the use of sport as international relations for decades. Long before the ERC and the popular sports movement existed there had been appeals for an Olympiadin Catalonia in order to enhance the prestige of the nation. Sport, particularly exclusive sport with high costs of entry, provided a channel through which the better off Catalan businessmen were able to meet on equal terms with their European colleagues. These well connected and well-heeled Catalans were the initial impulse behind theComite Olimpic de Catalunya (COC, Catalan Olympic Committee) which emerged in 1913, a decade before its Spanish equivalent. It was this bourgeoisimpulse which spurred the previous Catalan Olympic candidacies. Whilst some of this movement was harnessed in the cross class ERC approach, there was also much new about the social make up and goals

of the popular games. The desire to bring the games to Catalonia remained strong, but now that desire was based in a new identity, thatof the popular front.

Just as the ERC did not represent all of the left in Catalonia, it didnot represent all of Catalan nationalism either. It is important for the reader to note that Catalan nationalism was a multi-faceted entity. The national identity projected by the popular games was one put forward by the ERC, one which articulated Catalanism to the republican left around the world. It has been argued, by Ucelay Da Cal13 amongst others, that Catalan nationalism was more strongly focused on leading Spain than linking to Europe. There also existed amore conservative and catholic tendency on the right of Catalan nationalism which was critical of the use of sport and of the social policy of the ERC and its allies. This conservative and traditionalistperspective had long been a support base for Catalan nationalism and claims for special legal rights for the more privileged Catalans. The national plan that the ERC had in mind, and that they were promoting with the popular Olympiad, was one of many nationalisms that claimed to represent Catalonia during the second republic. Furthermore the games were not exclusively articulated away from Spain. In line with the “imperialist” model of Catalonia leading Spain, so the event welcomed Spanish competitors (and money) in Barcelona as part of a popular front. Whilst the organizers certainly had the goal of an autonomous Catalonia, they were not opposed to the inclusion of their co-ideologues from the rest of Spain. It was, amongst the many catalnisms, the national identity of the ERC’s republican leftist ideals that determined policy at the time and the content of the games. The fact that this identity was articulated through sport, and that it aimed to appeal across class boundaries and to embrace state and non state nations within a broader popular front, makes it an intriguing area of study for the historian.

This shared project of empowerment and willingness to lay down the hatchet of class war in a shared conflict against fascism contributed to a shared popular identity and a shared investment in projects such

13 Da Cal, Enric Ucelay. El Imperialismo Catalán: Prat de La Riba, Cambó, D’Ors Y La Conquista Moral de España. Edhasa, 2003.

as the popular Olympics. The popular Olympics were not a creation of Moscow’s popular front policy but Moscow’s popular front policy allowed them to exist with international support. The ERC, although cross class and leftist was not the Comintern supported socialist entity in Catalonia. Indeed Moscow often saw nationalist claims as contrary to international class struggle. The party more closely aligned to Moscow, the PCC , along with the socialist Catalan branch of the PSOE and the USC, tended to suffer in electoral politics at the hands of the ERC and in trade union affiliation at the hands of the anarcho-syndicalists. The policy of the popular front allowed the ERC and a variety of left-republican, liberal, popular front, socialist and even communist groups across Europe to find common ground in the fight against fascism14. Events such as the Popular Olympics solidified this union and it is the ability of these events to exemplify the possibilities for leadership to be taken away from Moscow and the potential of such a front for fostering identities which could not exist in a nation-state system that I shall focus on in this chapter.

Through tracing the Catalan decision to not only boycott the 1936 Nazigames but also to host an alternative I hope to illustrate that this represented a decision to lead the way in the use of the sport as a form of diplomacy and a way of creating identity at home and abroad. Once it became clear that the 1936 Olympiads in Germany were to be irrevocably tied to the Nazi regime’s propaganda machine, Barcelona provided the world with an anti-fascist alternative. The popular Olympics, although ultimately foiled by homegrown rightist violence, represented a perfect example of the shared ideology of progressive anti fascism of the popular front. Other alternatives such as the Jewish Olympics, Workers Olympics and Spartakiads were the creations of political or religious groups which pushed a certain agenda and worldview. The popular Olympics, by contrast, were an open alternative

14 When founded in 1931 the ERC contained the political group L'Opinió, Macià’s Estat Català and the Partit Republicà Català of Companys . Madrid’s popular front of 1936 contained the POUM, the PSOE the PCE the UR along with the ERC and the Galician PG. The latter was also supported by the UGT and CNT at the time of its inception.

to the Nazi games that welcomed all of those who felt unwelcome in Berlin.

Olympic, nationalist and popular front ideology

The Modern Olympic movement contained many of the ideas which would later be seized upon to motivate the popular games. Founded by Frencharistocrat Pierre De Coubertin the regenerationist movement idealized the ancient Greek games at Olympia and aimed to use this model for a modern Olympiad. Before his Olympic project, De Coubertin took a greatinterest in social reform and working class education, editing a work entitled Entre deux batailles: de l'Olympisme à l'Université ouvrière15 (between 2 battles: Olympism and the workers’ university). De Coubertin was heavily influenced by Frédéric Le Play’s critiques of industrial modernity16, progressive pedagogy and social reforming efforts and the ideas of the Société d’économie sociale. These critiques and theories also affected the Catalan physical education movement and were behind much of the popular sport theory. The initial modern Olympic ideal cannot be understood without reference to De Coubertin’s utopian-romantic ideals and the influence of international peace movements and progressive education on his thinking. This combination of mutual benefit for sport and society was reflected in the popular games and their mission.

Alongside this French social reforming influence, De Coubertin was affected by the thoughts of Thomas Arnold; the first head of Rugby school, on the importance of sportsmanship, fair play and “muscular Christianity17” in the formation of young men who would go on to serve the empire. Also influential was the thinking of William Penny Brookeswho had himself founded an earlier Olympic society in Much Wenlock, Shropshire18. Both of these thinkers were concerned with the potential

15 De Coubertin, P., N. Müller, G. Rioux, O. Schantz, and G. de Navacelle. Pierre de Coubertin: textes choisis. Weidmann, 1986.  De Coubertin had a great interest in pedagogy and the creation of working class universities.16 Frédéric Le Play. Les Ouvriers Européens. Paris, 1879.17 Although Arnold predates the common use of the term, most famously by Hughes (Thomas Hughes. Tom Brown at Oxford, 1864.) the ideals contained in this phrase are very much those of Arnold’s Rugby school education reforms18 Don Anthony. “Coubertin, Britain and the British.” Journal of Olympic History 5, no. 3 (1997).

for sport to promote public wellbeing and to enforce qualities of discipline and manliness which they feared would be lost in an increasingly commercial society which was growing alienated from physical work. Sport would also teach the concept of fair play and abiding by the rules of the game, vital concepts for the new class of imperial administrators and citizens in a democratic nation. These British thinkers consciously theorized that sport could be used in thebettering of society and the formation of individuals better suited toliving in a democracy, this influenced soon spread south to Barcelona via De Coubertin.

De Coubertin’s Olympic ideal incorporated many ideological elements which have been lost in today’s games. He was strongly opposed to professionalism, mistakenly citing the ancient Greek example of amateur athletes19. Despite his opposition to professional athletes, DeCoubertin also opposed the way the amateurism rules in England were used to keep working class athletes out of many sports with defacto barriers to their participation. He saw sports as an essentially crossclass endeavor. Although sport in the past had been confined to the bourgeoisie, De Coubertin felt that  "it is now necessary for this pleasure [sport] to enter the lives of the adolescent proletariat”20. He also took the Greek idea of a sacred truce around the games to heart, using his sporting event to promote peace and mutual respect amongst nations21. He saw the games as a stage where nations could cometogether and put aside their differences in order to share in fraternal competition and marvel at the achivements and capacities of humanity. De Coubertin's Olympic ideology can be broken into four simple aims: To educate and cultivate the individual through

19 The Greek athletes were as professional as anyone else in that era, whilst they may not have been paid directly they were rewarded for winning with a sumlarge enough to live off for the rest of their lives and they began to form guilds similar to today’s unions as early as 600 BC. Young, David C. A Brief History of the Olympic Games. Brief Histories of the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004.20 De Coubertin, P., Carl-Diem-Institut (Köln), and J. G. Dixon. The Olympic idea: Discourses and essays. Ed. internationales Olympia; Olympischer Sport-Verl. Pp6021 He was mistaken in this regard. The Olympic Truce only forbade invasions ofOlympia and prohibited anyone from stopping any athlete or spectator on the way to or from the Games, even if required to pass through a hostile state to make the journey. David C. Young. A Brief History of the Olympic Games, 2004.

sport,  to cultivate relations between men in society,to promote international understanding, and to promote global peace and understanding . In direct contrast to Orwell’s assessment, De Coubertin wanted to bring mankind together through sport, not push nations apart. Whilst many of these motivating ideals behind the gameswere lost as sport became increasingly commercial and sectarian, the popular games sought to return to this simple ideal.

De Coubertin thought that sport should promote mutual understanding and global fraternity, stating that: "the revived Olympic games must give the youth of the world a chance of a happy and brotherly encounter which will gradually efface the people's ignorance of thingswhich concern them all, an ignorance which feeds hatreds, accumulates misunderstandings and hurtles events along a barbarous path towards a merciless conflict"22. The games were to serve as a place where people could come together to appreciate what they had in common rather than what differentiated them, this would in turn lead to a decrease in international and inter class conflict. De Coubertin’s Olympic ideal was one of internationalism and “enlightened patriotism”. Whilst he believed that one should cherish one’s nation above others De Coubertin did not believe that this love for one’s own nation should not cause a hatred for others. Rather, he felt that a fraternal competition with other nations should emerge when they met at the games. That is to say that in the Olympic ideal, international fraternity and national identity were not mutually exclusive. De Coubertin proclaimed, “Olympism was a religion with its own church, dogma, and service23”. Its gods were men, the elite amongst them, thosewho went higher, faster and further than others regardless of where they came from. If the Olympics worshiped human greatness, they worshipped the greatness of all humanity. The Olympic ideal suggested that any human could ascend to this pantheon of godliness, regardless of creed, colour or nation. By promoting common human identity, fraternal international competition among non-adversarial equals and cherishing performances regardless of who completed them, De

22 De Coubertin, P., Carl-Diem-Institut (Köln), and J. G. Dixon. The Olympic Idea: Discourses and Essays. Ed. internationales Olympia; Olympischer Sport-Verl., n.d.23 [26] N. Muller (ed.) (2000) Olympism. Selected Writings/Pierre de Coubertin(Lausanne: International Olympic Committee)

Coubertin’s ideals for the games constructed a unique approach to identity in the international sphere.

By the time the games were awarded to Berlin, they had moved a long way from their creator’s intent. De Coubertin had been replaced as chair of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by Henri, comte de Baillet-Latour, a Belgian aristocrat who did not share De Coubertin’s social goals. Most of the competitors in the Games by 1936 did not subscribe to De Coubertin’s “enlightened patriotism” and increasingly nations came to the games to prove superiority not celebrate fraternity. It was not the youth of the world but the children of the privileged few who competed in these early Olympiads. The popular classes were largely excluded from many of the sports clubs, universities and societies that selected teams to represent nations atthe games. The 1936 edition of the games would see the Olympics depart most dramatically from De Coubertin’s ideal and take an entirely less progressive path of Nazi eugenics and racial discourse24.In many ways the Berlin games represented the culmination of the movement of sport from fraternal and socially progressive to competitive, nationalist, exclusive, elitist and racially charged.

Catalonia and the games

The Catalans themselves had a long tradition of using sport as a meansof creating identity, as illustrated in the other chapters of this work. In 1913 the COC (Comitè Olímpico de Cataluña) was formed by sports journalists. The Catalans felt that they would be better represented outside of the Spanish sporting structure in their attempts to bring the games to Barcelona. The bourgeoisie had long felt that their best route into the European elite was through cultureand many interpreted the Olympics as a perfect event to launch Barcelona higher on the world stage. It would illustrate an ability toorganize on a large scale and would bring the middle class athletes 24 Intriguingly when interviewed on the Berlin Olympics, an aging and possiblysenile De Coubertin “went beyond praise of the Nazi organization of the Games to make enigmatic statements about amateurism and the meaning of Olympism thatembarrassed his purist disciples as much as they delighted the bourgeois “realists” who had been constant critics of the Olympic oath.” WJ Murray. “France, Coubertin and the Nazi Olympics: The Response.” Olympiaka 1 (1992): 46–69.

who competed in early Olympiads to Barcelona. Plans for a lavish stadium often appeared in the bourgeois publications and social clubs as industrialists put forth different ideas for the structure to provide a sporting version of the Sagrada Familia25. These same publications carried reports of aviation, polo and yachting as well asthe more accessible sports enjoyed by the working classes. Photos fromthese meetings show well dressed and wealthy men debating the benefitsof the stadia which are discussed at greater length in other aspects of this work. The funding and support behind such projects illustratesthat the Catalan industrialists saw sport as a key part of the construction of their cultural nation. These middle class nationalistswould later split between the more conservative Lliga and the progressive ERC. The latter would take the idea of sport and the Olympics and spread it to the working classes.

The Generalitat was at the forefront of the use of sport to create a cross class identity, supporting the committee as well as elite and popular sport throughout Catalonia. As a port city, and a leader in Iberian culture and industry, Barcelona felt well positioned to host such an international event, especially as preparation began for the 1929 world’s fair. Despite Barcelona’s failure to secure the support of the IOC for the 1924 games (Which went to De Coubertin’s native Paris at his request) efforts did not cease. The world’s fair saw its own sports events (including a torch run, linked more to Catalan than Greek traditions)26 and several exhibition matches in various sports. Ahuge new Stadium project had its corner stone laid by Baillet Latour in 1928 and the candidacy was revived in an attempt to secure the 1936games. The exposition built in Montjuïc served to help present Catalonia’s modern, industrial, sporting face to the world and bring the world to Barcelona. As such it complemented rather than competed with their Olympian goals.

The host city for the summer games of the XI Olympiad was decided uponon April 26 1931, less than two weeks after the declaration of the Spanish second republic. Even though Barcelona hosted the 29th session

25 Vanguardia, December 5, 1914.La Vanguardia, July 6, 1917.26 “L’esport a La Exposicio.” La Publicitat, July 9, 1930.

of the IOC, and sent both Macià himself and the industrialist and cultural patron Baron Güell27 to persuade the IOC of the validity of its candidacy, the Catalan capital only obtained 16 votes to Berlin’s 4328. Interestingly no Spanish delegates attended the meeting and there were roughly 80 abstentions29. The committee included no less than five counts and one Marquis perhaps predisposing it against the increasingly leftist position of Barcelona under the ERC. It was felt that the political environment of Spain’s second republic was too unstable to host the games and that (ironically) the Weimar regime in Germany at the time was a more suitable candidate. At the time Germanywas returning to acceptance in the community of “democratic” nations having “proven” it’s commitment to peaceful diplomacy following the First World War. In early 1933 the city of Garmisch announced that it would be exercising the right to host the winter Olympiad of 1936, granting a double to the Weimar regime which has since been unrepeated30. Through sports diplomacy, the IOC handed Germany the chance to show the world its best side and return to the internationalcommunity.

During the first third of the twentieth century much changed about Catalan sport and the agenda for international events, such as the Olympics, began to look almost entirely different. Once those proposing an Olympiad had been the patrons of yacht clubs and polo

27 The Guell family were long time patrons of the arts in Barcelona and Juan Guell had seen the benefit of sports for creating identity firsthand during his studies at Cambridge28 Jordi Mercader. “The Games after Sixty Six Years Wait.” Olympic Review, no.233 (March 1987).29 Pujadas, X., and C. Santacana. “The Popular Olympic Games, Barcelona 1936: Olympians and Antifascists.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 27, no. 2 (1992): 139.30 Although there were plans for Japan to do the same in 1940. The IOC websitestates that “It was at the Barcelona Session in 1931 that Berlin was chosen ashost city of the Games of the XI Olympiad. On this occasion, the German National Olympic Committee announced that it was exercising its right to organise the Winter Games, as the rules of the International Olympic Committee(IOC) allowed at that time. Later, the German IOC members thus named Garmisch-Partenkirchen as host of the Winter Games, and the IOC agreed with the choice.” “The Garmisch Partenkirchen 1936 Winter Olympics.” Olympic.org. Accessed December 30, 2014. http://www.olympic.org/Garmisch-Partenkirchen-1936-winter-olympics.

games, now they were now joined by the stewards of factory floors and the conductors of busses in a broader sporting coalition which reflected the increasing participation in sport and politics. The Catalan popular sports movement was very much a creature of the ERC’s attempt to reach out to the urban working classes and create a shared national project based around liberal republican values. The working classes and bourgeoisie alike had demonstrated a passion for sport andit was through sport that they were able to meet on a level playing field. Reflecting this change in the political attitude to sport, the candidacy aimed to appeal to the people of Europe, not the nobles of the IOC.

Despite defeat by Berlin, Barcelona and Catalonia were able to create a popular alternative to the Nazi spectacle. In doing so, they were able to position Catalonia squarely at the forefront of anti-fascist, international, identity. The extensive preparations for previous candidacies, combined with the events of the World’s fair had given the city much of the required infrastructure to host a games. The popular sports structure combined with the buildings and networks established for the elite sporting world and the exposition allowed Barcelona to rapidly take up the call for an alternative to the Berlingames. At the end of April 1936 the Organizing Committee for the Popular Olympic Games (COOP) was set up, and the Executive Committee followed on May 19th. The committee was chaired by Josep Antoni Trabal,a Spanish parliamentarian who had been closely linked to the world of sport for over a decade. Jaume Miravitlles31 and Pere Aznar32 served asthe Committee’s Vice-Presidents. They would oversee a new kind of international sporting event that would combine all classes and abilities and stand as an example of the progressive utopia that the ERC aimed to create in Catalonia. This conscious placing of the Catalan nation into a progressive European narrative was a major and consistent part of the ERC’s foreign policy and of Catalan identity. Sadly its expression and full realization was cut short by the coup that occurred as the games began and resulted in the Francoist

31 An ex-communist, member of the ERC and prolific author and journalist as well as a film producer. 32 President of the CADCI and a parliamentary representative of the Partit Català Proletari

dictatorship that would quash the progress of Catalan nationalism for decades thereafter.

1936: the year with 3 Olympiads

The Nazi games

Having been handed the games under the Weimar regime as a reward for reintegration into Europe’s democratic community, Germany’s politics changed dramatically. On 23rd March 1933, Hitler was able to get the members of the dysfunctional Reichstag (which had recently burned down) to pass his Enabling Act. In doing so, Hitler swept away democracy and made the parliament a mere rubber stamp for his party-state. Nazi election material had been highly dismissive about the Olympic ideal and it was presumed that they would cancel the games. However Josef Goebbels, never one to forego a propaganda opportunity, persuaded the regime to embrace the games and their potential for selling the regime to the world. The Nazis saw an opportunity to strengthen links to classical Greece, illustrate the physical superiority of the Aryan “race” and the efficiency of the Nazi system to the rest of the world. Many of the traditions that we associate with the Olympics today were invented by the Nazis in 1936 and an unprecedented level of mobilization occurred to prepare Berlin for thearrival of the “youth of the world” 33. What was to have been the comingout party for democracy became an exhibition of what fascism could offer that democracies could not.

The Berlin games were the first to be taken on by a country rather than a city and to become part of a political rather than sporting narrative. The IOC has always awarded Olympiads to cities based on themerits of their applications, as opposed to giving the games to nations or governments to host where they see fit. This was the argument the IOC used to send the games to Berlin (and later Moscow and Beijing). Whatever the theory stated with regards to the Berlin games, in practice it was very clear that they were not representativeof a city but of a regime and an ideology. Likewise the Popular

33 The Olympic bell used in Berlin bore the inscription “I summon the youth ofthe world”

Olympics represented not just Barcelona but also the ERC and the anti fascist ideology of the popular front.

The explicit competition between nations at the Olympics was made partof the games in a more organized fashion after Goebbels took control of them. For the first time, a medal table was introduced, with the intention of proving the overall superiority of the Aryan nations. Flags were carried in the opening ceremony and many athletes gave the Nazi salute (indeed the whole ceremony was reduced to a glorified Naziparade). The Olympic torch, a central element of today’s sporting choreography, was dreamed up by Dr Carl Diem,34 and seized upon by Goebbels, to forge closer links between Berlin and the classical rootsof the games. The Nazi regime fundamentally altered the nature of the games, which became an even more explicit vehicle for nationalism, thepoliticization of race, and propaganda as well as evidence of the formidable organizational capacities of Nazi Germany. The Nazis solidified their propaganda coup with Leni Riefenstahl ‘s film “Olympia”. This piece portrayed the order and discipline behind the success of the Nazi games and Aryan athletes, and was every bit the companion to “Triumph of the Will,” her 1934 Nazi party congress film.When the New York Times stated "no country since ancient Greece has displayed a more truly national interest in the Olympic spirit than you will find in Germany today" it did not realize the deeper meaning of the word nation and the exclusive fashion in which this interest was perceived35.

Rather than opposing these nationalist uses of what was supposed to bean internationalist event, the willingness of the majority of the IOC to acquiesce in the brutality of the Nazi regime was quite remarkable.At the games themselves, the Nazis instructed their supporters to behave civilly towards Jews and others who would be considered “non-Aryans” due to their race. This play-acting dispelled much of the ill will that was felt towards the Nazi regime in the international

34 Diem was not himself a Nazi, indeed his wife was from a Jewish family. However he had been integral to the securing of the games for Berlin before the Nazi takeover of power. He retained his position as Secretary General of the Organizing Committee even after the regime change. 35 New York Times, October 5, 1936.quoted in Kanin, D. B. A Political History of the Olympic Games. Westview Pr, 1981.

community. Despite evidence of abuse of various groups and political opposition, as well as government violence before and after the games,the IOC chose to see Germany as a peaceful and well-ordered society that placed sport and physical activity on a high pedestal. At the London IOC meeting in 1939, Garmisch-Partenkirchen was selected to host the 1940 Winter Olympics36. The IOC remained unmoved even as Hitler’s atrocities were becoming more blatant and war was becoming more inevitable with each passing week. Whilst the official Olympiad continued on its path towards becoming a proxy for national conflict and warfare, the popular games were to be an event where it was the experience and the performance, not the performer, which was of interest. The popular games not only offered a different vision of what the Olympics should be, but of how a nation should see itself andthe world. The two models for Olympiads represented two models for society. These ideas would clash on the battlefields of Spain and Europe in the coming decade, even if the popular Olympics themselves were never able to stake their claim against the Nazi games.

The boycott movement and alternative games.

The winter games at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria were the first event on the Nazi Olympic schedule. They seemed to occur without a hitch and were reflected upon positively by the rightist Catalan nationalist press. The magazine D’aci I d’alla commented on “The pomp and majesty which Germans express so well in mass spectacles”37.  These games were indeed a spectacle, but the movement to boycott their summer counterparts entirely, and thus avoid being part of the Nazi spectacle, began long before the winter games took place. As it becameincreasingly clear that the Nazi regime was far from benign, many began to show opposition to the Berlin games. This manifested itself

36 The 1940 summer and winter games were first awarded to Japan before being withdrawn during the Sino Japanese war and reallocated to Helsinki and St Mortiz respectively. The organizing committee of the winter games then offended the IOC further, resulting in a second reallocation of the games to Germany. 37 el pompa I majestat que els alemanys saben encomanar a semblats espaectacles de masses - D’aci I D’alla issue 2 1936 UCSD Library special collections

globally with boycotts and alternatives springing up as reports of atrocities in Nazi Germany did not abate.

The Olympic Games quickly became politicized, as the absence of Jewishathletes in German teams, along with more general Nazi abuses of humanrights and members of the opposition became apparent, and an international boycott movement took shape. Eventually the German government, through Hans Pfundeter (an official in the interior ministry), offered assurances that Jews would be allowed to compete. Despite being de jure allowed to compete, the fact that Jews could notbe members of sports clubs served as a de facto prohibition to their participation on the German team. In the USA it was not only the Jewish political lobby (which gained much of its coherence over this issue) but also the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the political left who formed the rallying points of the boycott campaign. This boycott in the US was spearheadedby Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, president of the Amateur Athletic Union. Mahoney was strongly opposed by the chair of the US branch of the International Olympic Committee (the IOC), Avery Brundage. Brundage was a strong advocate of keeping politics out of the games, stating that "The Olympic Games belong to the athletes and not to the politicians38" .This “apolitical” positioning of course was, in itself,a highly political action. He blamed the boycott on “Jewish communist conspiracy”. An affirmed anti-Semite himself39, Brundage admired the Nazis for taking a strong line against the Bolsheviks, whom he considered a much greater threat.  After the assurances from the Nazi regime regarding participation, Brundage became the staunchest opponent of the boycott campaign and actively advocated for full attendance.

Despite the official stance of the USA, there was much opposition fromthe left and particularly from the increasingly politicizing black community. The NAACP opposed participation in the Berlin games, not

38 Avery Brundage. “Fair Play for American Athletes.” American Olympic committee, 1934.39 Brundage once noted that he himself was a member of a sports club where Jews were not permitted to be members. - Keys, B. J. The dictatorship of sport: nationalism, internationalism, and mass culture in the 1930's: a thesispresented at Harvard University

only due to direct racism against black people by the Nazis40, but alsoin the interest of making common cause with the Jews. The New York Amsterdam News wrote an open letter to these athletes, offering them the “greatest opportunity41” of their careers “to challenge a force which seeks to destroy everything you have devoted your best years to building42”. The athletes who had the opportunity to go to the games saw things differently. For them this was the greatest opportunity of their lives. While back home they were forced onto the back of the bus, here they could take center stage.  None of the boycott movementsin the African American press seem to have subscribed to the popular front identity explicitly; however they did often situate themselves within an international colonized movement that shared some of the notions of enlightened nationalism. Although often painted as a racialconstruction, this movement embraced Arabs and South Americans as wellas black people. Whilst there were ideological links between the popular Olympiad and the NAACP, the opportunities available to the black athletes in Berlin prevented the popular front alliances from joining up with the oppressed black people of the USA.

With the Boycott movement taking shape all over the world in opposition to the Nazi regime, alternatives to the Berlin Olympiad were highly politicized. A choice to boycott the games entirely by a major power would have been the first step to the diplomatic and eventually physical fracas that would soon engulf Europe. France initially saw the government supporting the games and the socialists tabling motions to boycott on moral grounds. The boycott movement really gained momentum after the 7th March 1936, when the Nazi regime remilitarized the Rhineland area on the border with France. Once Leon Blum’s popular front government came to power in early June it seemed like France would boycott the games entirely. The issue became highly politicized and, with strikes covering France the decision was rushed.  Fearing being labeled as a communist if he reversed the 40 Although there was some less overt racism : basketball players were limitedto a maximum height for instance Holmes, J. Olympiad 1936: blaze of glory for Hitler's Reich. Ballantine Books.41 The New York Amsterdam News Aug 24, 1935 pp1; ProQuest Historical Newspapers New York Amsterdam News: 1922-199342 The New York Amsterdam News Aug 24, 1935 pp1; ProQuest Historical Newspapers New York Amsterdam News: 1922-1993

previous government’s decision and desperately needing to distance hispopular front from such accusations, Blum decided to sit on the fence.France donated 600,000 francs to the popular games in Barcelona43 and helped to cover the costs of the 150044 French athletes attending. However France also spent 1.1 million francs on sending a team to Berlin, where the French government was not officially represented, asthe French Olympic committee pointed out, no government is officially represented. However Private athletes were allowed to compete in the national colours. Paris played host to the boycott movement’s greatestgathering, the "International conference on Respect for the Olympic Ideal” just two days after Blum’s election. The phrasing of this conference in terms of the Olympic ideal and not anti-fascism shows Blum’s precarious position with regard to the politicization of the games.

Three major alternatives were offered to the “Nazi” Olympics in Berlinbut none of the other pretenders to the Olympic legacy offered a unique transnational identity like that posited by the Popular Olympics. Firstly, 1935 saw Tel Aviv hosting a “Jewish Olympics”. These Maccabiah games were not so much a direct creation of opposition to the Berlin events as a continuation of a pre-existing tradition of Jewish games, which had begun to take a more official, Olympian form in 1932. The date was changed to occur before the Berlin games, allowing the games to benefit from the boycott’s publicity and vice versa. Many Jewish athletes from the 28 nations represented (includingGermany) decided to remain in mandatory Palestine (including the entire Bulgarian team who sent only their instruments home45) rather than return to possible persecution.  The Jewish games, although opposed to the Nazi Olympics, did not offer an all-embracing alternative; indeed they were perhaps more exclusionary than their counterparts in Berlin.

On the 15-16 August, the last 2 days of the Berlin games. 7,500 watched the “world labor [sic] athletic carnival” in Randall’s Island 43 La Vanguardia 15 July 1936 pp1244 Colomé, G., and J. Sureda. “Sport and international relations (1913-1939): the 1936 Popular Olympiad.” Centre d’Estudis Olímpics UAB. http://olympicstudies. uab. es/pdf/wp020_eng. pdf (accessed March 18, 2008).45 http://www.jewishsports.net/the_maccabiah_games.htm accessed 12/28/2014

in the USA. This hugely successful event was organized by Jeremiah Mahoney who was a leader in the boycott movement in the USA. The difference between these alternative games, and those held in Barcelona is twofold. Firstly they did not seek to challenge the authority of the Berlin Olympics; they were supplementary and they didnot take the name “Olympic”. They did not tempt athletes away from thegames, nor did they take the form of a real alternative. They followedin the footsteps of the 1931 Vienna workers’ Olympics in really only being open to a limited pool of participants who were already ideologically homogeneous. Such events reinforced existing identities rather than taking advantage of the ability of such an event to createnew identities and build bridges between existing ones. Clearly the Labor carnival was not open to all comers. The boycott movement had united many groups who had previously not spoken with each other and, in doing so it allowed for the possible forming of new alliances against fascism and a new popular identity.

The popular Olympics held in Barcelona were explicitly opposed to the Berlin games and claimed the Olympic spirit was better embodied by their version of the games. This was not a continuation of previously existing sectarian sports events (as was the case with the workers’ Olympics in Vienna) nor an exclusive gathering of a group which happened to include sport (as was the case in the Maccabiah games). Drawing on De Coubertin’s notions of enlightened patriotism and the ideology of the popular front as well as the broad opposition to the Berlin games, the popular Olympics was unique in its use of an Olympiad to perform and create new identities. For their pomp and majesty, the games relied on a grand vision of the popular future rather than recalling a glorious classical past.

Despite the virulent boycott movement and the criticism of the Berlin games from the Catlan press and politicians, the events of the Olympiad were still widely reported. D’aci i d’alla was no longer publishedby the time of the summer games, however the Catalan “popular” and sporting press reported the events of and the lead up to the Berlin games. La Vanguardia46, El Mundo Deportivo47 and even the monthly club

46 “Los Juegos Olímpicos (Berlin).” La Vanguardia, July 8, 1936.47 “Ante Los J. Olimpicos de Berlin.” El Mundo Deportivo, July 12, 1936.

newsletter of the Club Natació Barcelona 48 shared the events and theirresults. La Vanguardia took pleasure in reporting the achievements of the“phenomenon”49 Jesse Owens undermining the obvious racial message of the Nazi regime. The reporting of the many world records which he set was balanced by praise for the smooth running of the games.   The willingness of all parts of the Catalan press to report on, and even praise, the Nazi Olympiad alongside the reporting of the popular games, suggests that these events were not seen as mutually exclusive but rather as having different constituencies and different purposes. Whilst the Olympics in Berlin provided record performances, those in Barcelona aimed for the other things which sport can create: a sense of fraternity and unity behind a goal more important than the games themselves.

Origins of the popular Olympics

Initially, the origins of the popular Olympiad were much the same as those for the boycott movement. In 1936, exiled German left wingers writing in Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung criticized the Nazi regime’s hijacking of the games. The games were awarded to a city, funded by a country and hijacked by an ideology. These were not games at which the youth of the world were welcome or even all the youth of Germany. The Hamburg workers “turnen” society50 sent a team to the Barcelona games as a protest against the Nazi oppression and the regime’s appropriation of the Olympiad for propaganda purposes. Clearly the events in the stadium were not so much a Berlin Games or even German games as a Nazi one. This rejection of the Berlin Olympiad by groups opposed to the Nazi regime led to the global boycott movement spreading around the world, as well as to many athletes, nations and groups making the choice to attend the Barcelona games in place of 48 “L’Olimpiada de Berlin.” Natació, January 1, 1936.49 “De Berlin.” La Vanguardia, August 12, 1936.50 The German Turnen movement was the major opposition to the British sports and athletic movement in the late nineteenth century. Turnen focused on mass calisthenics and was closely linked to Germa nationalism and later, to an extent, co-opted by the Nazi youth movement

their Berlin counterpart. It is in the positioning of the games as explicitly opposed to the Nazi alternative, but also in their goal of going beyond mere protest and instead attempting a broader redefinition of nationalism, that we find out how the Catalans saw themselves and what they hoped to achieve through sports diplomacy.

Whilst the games came together quickly (from April to July 1936), it does not follow that these games were entirely a creature of the popular front government elected earlier that year. The popular games had deeper roots in the Catalan system of popular sport. The popular sports movement had long had its roots in Catalonia and the ERC represented a precursor of the popular front governments which later took root in Paris and Madrid. Whilst (as illustrated below) it is true that much of the financial support came from governments outside of Barcelona, this would have been meaningless without the establishedpatterns of popular sport which had taken root and born fruit in the Catalan capital. Were it not for the pre-existing popular sports organizations in Catalonia and the organizational and logistical infrastructure that they provided, the games could not have come together so quickly.

The existence of the Comité Català pro Esport Popular (CCEP) in Catalonia madeit the only place where such an event could occur. Around the world, sport in the 1930s was overwhelmingly bourgeois, especially at the Olympic and elite level. Often entry was policed by clubs restricting access according to profession or social status and costly equipment provided de facto barriers to entry for the working classes. The combination of long factory hours, poor health, low disposable income and the lack of facilities had conspired to keep the working classes out of Olympic sport for most of the first 2 decades of the twentieth century (with notable exceptions51). When the middle class attempted toreach down to the working class with sporting activity, this was mainly in an attempt to improve public health and productivity of the working classes not to play together to improve the cohesiveness of society. This “hygenist” approach enforced class differences and the

51 Football games were attracting crowds of up to 25,000 in 1921 and boxing crowds toped 80,000 Pujadas, X., and C. Santacana. “L’altra Olimpiada.” Barcelona ‘36. Barcelona, Llibres de l’Index (1990) pp52& 54

“superiority” of the middle classes rather than bringing classes together.

Catalonia pursued a different sporting path with a “popular” sports movement emerging under the watchful eye and directing hand of the ERCgovernment.   The CCEP was one of many popular sporting organizations which emerged under the ERC during the second republic. These sportingorganizational bodies were created with the specific aim of creating asocial basis for cross class political alliances on the Catalan left, opposing fascism and removing commercialism from sport. Mundo Deportivo cites the CCPEP’s first meeting as having “the air of a Soviet” and quotes one of the founding members (Brunet) as saying thatthe organization’s aim was to promote sport in order to improve publichealth and “To popularize sport as a form of culture and physical regeneration [for the nation]52”. There was also a strong element of hygenism in the CCPEP mission, as illustrated by its early focus on eliminating tuberculosis53. This hygenism came from a public health perspective and not a productivity one, furthermore it occurred alongside a narrative of shared sporting experience rather than being presented alone in order to encourage the working classes to “better” themselves. What made this organization distinct was the fact that thewhole nation was to be included. Classes were to play alongside each other and to learn to better understand each other through sport. Thisapproach falls in line with De Coubertin’s ideas of spreading the “pleasure” and benefits of sport to the young workers, rather than merely improving their productivity, or saving their souls.

There were numerous trade union sports clubs and cross class sporting societies (such as the Unio Esportiva Sants) united in Catalonia under the CCPEP. Alongside bodies which existed solely for sport, much of the popular sports movement was subsumed into the ateneus (adult education/ community centers), promoting culture and literacy amongst the workingclasses along with sport. These ateneus were the cornerstone of the Catalan left and sport was a key part in their attempt to improve the 52 Mundo Deportivo 18 March 1936 pp6 (popularizar el deporte como medio de cultura y regeneramiento  fisico)53 German doctor Wilhelm Sweinty addressed the first meeting of the CCEP on the issue of usingexercise to prevent tuberculosis Mundo Deportivo 18 March 1936pp6

consciousness and (physical and mental) capacities of the working classes. Organized sport in Catalonia, even prior to the popular Olympiad, was explicitly “popular” in its structure and composition. Sport also took on a clear anti-fascist stance with the CCEP announcing in Justicia social that it aimed to “declare war on forces destructive to human values and rebut fascism”54. Catalonia had placed itself at the forefront of anti-fascist cross-class sport before Berlin came to the helm of the opposite tendency, and thus Barcelona was the obvious location for a “popular” games.

Popular, not workers’ Olympics

The announcement of the Barcelona games occurred in the popular press through the organizing bodies of popular sport. La Vanguardia stated that: “senor Trabal (the head of the organizing committee) noted that the games did not have a class or party agenda but aimed to unite the youth of the world under a common goal of progress, liberty and peace”55. This excellent summary of the role of the games places them in sharp contrast to their Berlin counterparts. The games were differentiated, not only from the Nazi games in Berlin, but also from the Moscow dominated workers’ sport movement which had such a strong presence in the working classes and socialist parties of many other nations. These games were not merely for furthering the interests of asingle class, race or nation but rather for uniting all classes behinda popular ideal. The teams from abroad who attended the games did tendtowards a more working class composition with the majority being drawnfrom workers sports clubs and left wing organizations (due in large part to the promotion through these organizations noted below). Senor Delaune, the head of the French FSGT (Federation of workers’ sports and gymnastics), noted that the French delegation included 1000 members of the FSGT and 500 of other organizations (many more than the215 athletes from the same nation sent to Berlin56) , truly representing French “popular” sport, not just the Workers’ sport

54 Juticia social note from the CCEP 23 may 1936 pp3 in Pujadas, X., and C. Santaca. “L’altra Olimpiada.” Barcelona ‘36. Barcelona, Llibres de l’Index (1990) pp73. 55 “el señor Trabal hizo notar queno tienen carácter partidista de ninguna clase, ya que sólo persiguen una finalidad noble y de sana emulación entre las juventudes deseosas de manifestarse bajo el símbolo de  un común ideal de progreso, libertad y paz” La Vanguardia 17th June, 1936

movement within it57. The Swiss delegate, senor Probst of the SATU (Swiss workers’ sports federation), also noted “We are in agreement with everything that the popularization of sport represents”58, presumably this included broadening the base of popular sport beyond Moscow’s approved Workers’ sport bodies. The message of sport as beneficial to the health, unity and wellbeing of the whole nation spread amongst those who came to the games primarily out of an opposition to those in Berlin. It seems that many of those taking part in the events did so as a conscious expression of support for thepopular sports movement and the politics and ideals behind it whilst others found the popular sports movement when looking for an alternative to the Berlin games. As these groups met on the playing field, the goal would be that they saw all that they shared rather than focusing on their minor differences.

Whilst the workers’ sport movement in Catalonia had failed to gain a foothold in a polity dominated by atypical parties, the rest of Europehad existing workers’ sport societies59. These groups, opposed to the Nazi regime and outside of the selection pool for the IOC events, embraced the Barcelona games. However the Popular Olympiad was to be something above and beyond the workers’ sport movement. The popular games aimed to include both workers’ and more traditional IOC affiliated sports groups who opposed the Berlin games and shared an antifascist perspective. In maintaining distance from the workers’ sport movement, Catalan Popular sport had retained links to much of what is classically associated with sport and the Olympic Games. Ideals of fair play, equality and health as well as mutual understanding and resistance to the use of the games to promote a 56 WJ Murray. “France, Coubertin and the Nazi Olympics: The Response.” Olympiaka 1 (1992): 46–69.57 Mundo Deportivo, 6th July 1936 pp258 “Estamos de acuerdo en todo lo que  representa la popularización del deporte” Mundo Deportivo, 6th July 1936. The Swiss had long been friends of the Catalans, donating spacefor the European congress of nations which met in their government buildings in September 1934.59 Jones, S. G. “The European Workers’ Sport Movement and Organized Labour in Britain Between the Wars.” European History Quarterly 18, no. 1 (1988): 3.Murray, W. J. “The French Workers’ Sports Movement and the Victory of the Popular Front in 1936.” International Journal of the History of Sport 4, no. 2(1987): 203–30.

certain, divisive, agenda remained intact in the popular games. The games undoubtedly had a political side to them but they remained as much a sporting as a political event. This meant that whilst invitations were open to anyone who wished to enter and who opposed fascism, the overwhelming bulk of attendance was from the left wing ofthe political spectrum.

Due to the nature of the leftist Catalan government and its links with the rest of Europe through the popular front and associated political parties, the games were publicized and promoted largely through left wing sports organizations and not elite sport governing bodies. The confusion was compounded by the organizers whose letters and invitations were often addressed to such bodies and used the familiar language of class and alienation through labour. This often led to a misconception, at the time and thereafter, that the Barcelonagames were simply a rebranding of previous workers’ Olympiads and spartakiads. This perception meant that the events did not appeal as strongly to many nations who were not inclined towards the Moscow model as their popular (as opposed to workers’) sport message was not conveyed. Where the popular front itself was not such a powerful concept and the left was still fractured, the popular games were a leap too far in terms of understanding. Even where the popular front existed it had not existed for long enough for its message of cross class sporting participation to trickle down into cultural reality andthus the popular sporting infrastructure was not in place to reach outto competitors from further afield. In most of Europe, sport remained divided along class lines. Universities and exclusive clubs served theprivileged few, workers sports associations and neighbourhood teams served the working classes. As a result of this factional confusion, fewer athletes attended from much of Northern Europe than from the popular front and sympathetic regimes further south. This was not out of the desire of the organizers, who explicitly rejected the “lies of the reactionary press”60 in this regard, but rather a consequence of their position in the vanguard of popular sports. There were simply very few analogous popular sport organizations to invite to the games in the short period between their initial conception and the opening 60 “la prensa reaccionaria miente a sabiendas cuando dice  que es una Olimpiada roja.” Martín, Andrés. Mundo Obrero, June 29, 1936.

ceremonies. Thus the workers’ sport movement often served to communicate the popular games to the various nations of Europe.

Whilst the games themselves were opposed to the excesses of Nazi eugenic nationalism, Catalonia’s anarchists opposed nationalism of whatever stripe. Although they were later compelled by circumstances to collaborate with Catalan nationalists and Catalan left wing groups against the common threat of the Francoists, they always maintained the line that nationalist struggles were a distraction from the more important class struggle. The anarchists fluctuated with regard to thepopular front. At first they supported an abstention campaign in elections but, by 1936 they had decided put their support behind the regime as the factionalism on the left began to cost support and play into the hands of the right. The anarchists were similarly inconclusive about sport. In general they opposed competition and preferred physical activities such as excursionism that increased the health of all without one party being defeated. However they found itimpossible to attract young people without embracing the activities which those same young people enjoyed. By the end of the second republic anarchist ateneus and youth groups had extensive physical culture sections. The anarchists persisted with doctrinal rejection ofcompetitive sport and thus remained aloof from the COOP. However, in practice, there was considerable overlap between anarchist organizations and popular sporting ones, indeed by 1936 there was evenan anarchist boxers’ union61 and its members, along with those of anarchist ateneus and trade unions contributed to the planning of the games and would surely have participated given the chance.

The exceptions to this general trend of working class and left wing participation were the Zionists and those from the nations not recognized as states within Europe and further afield. These groups were happy to support an event which recognized their national sovereignty62 and which opposed the Nazi use of the Olympics and that regime’s associated marginalization and persecution of such groups. Itcould be argued that these games were something of a gathering for disgruntled nations without states and thus without representation in

61 “Los Directivos Del Sindicato de Boxeadores.” Boxeo, September 22, 1936.62 El Mundo Deportivo 7th June 1936

the Berlin games. There was indeed a unique opportunity for nations tochoose their own identity at this games, but that was not the reason for the games. The proliferation of national identities to be found inthe program of the Barcelona games was a consequence of a broader desire to embrace progressive democracy and a willingness to allow people to define their own identity rather than having it forced upon them by biology or ideology. The popular front was a space which embraced democracy and people’s right to self definition but the gameswere about promoting this broad based democracy, not solely incubatingnations.

The popular Olympics were not merely a self-congratulatory assemblage of those on the European left but an attempt to expand popular political ideology using sport and culture. Although not entirely successful, the attendance of the Zionists and students alongside the workers’ sports federations and groups traditionally opposed to competitive sports such as the libertarian left made these games unique. The varied participation in the events undermined the Berlin narrative of selecting the “fittest” young people from every nation tocompete and determine the superiority of one over the other. Through harnessing opposition to the Berlin Games the Barcelona games were able to spread the message behind popular sport.

An important element of the CCEP’s vision that was to be incorporated into the 1936 games was the idea that sport should be for all, not just in the sense of income groups and genders63 but also in the sense of talent or aptitude. The proposed schedule for the 1936 games included events for club athletes and even for the general public. Theaim of the games was to promote a spirit of international fraternity through competition. This was fundamentally distinct from the primacy of the record performance and the elite level competition that had come to characterize the IOC’s games by 1936. Modern Olympics have been subsumed into the modernist dogma of constant progress and improvement. The “popular” games did not fall victim to this fiction, the aim was to use sport for public wellbeing and to create a sense offraternity amongst the different classes which were united under the

63 Indeed the club femení d'esports (womens’ sports club) was a key founding elementof the CCEP and the organizing committee of the popular games

popular front rather than to illustrate the superiority of one group over another. The emphasis would be on experiencing sport together, not on spectating separately.

Funding of the games

Obviously hosting thousands of competitors64 and putting on hundreds ofevents was not a cheap proposal, especially given the fact that most of the world was experiencing a period of recession. Much like the approach to national identity of the popular Olympics, the funding of the event was unique. A normal Olympiad was entirely funded by the host nation, on the premise that the host would benefit from the gameseconomically and in its international status. However the popular Olympiad, designed to benefit the people of the world, was funded by more varied sources. Contributions came not just from Barcelona, nor indeed from Spain, but from outside the borders of the host city and the state. This diverse and varied funding shows the international nature of the popular games. Not only did athletes travel to compete, but governments and governing bodies contributed in order to sustain the popular sports project.

The French popular front shared the organizers’ “popular” goal. IndeedFrench and Spanish governments had collaborated in the past on the issue of the importance of popular sport65. French newspaper  l’Humanite reported that the games would “defend the true Olympic spirit of peaceand equality among races" against the Berlin games of "national socialism, slavery, war and racial hatred". The ‘paper also made an appeal made to blacks, Jews, the people of Alsace-Lorraine and "other oppressed national minorities"66 to attend and be represented alongsidenation states67.  The French nation state stood both to gain and lose from the nation-building impulse of the games: Both Catalonia and the

64 Even though there was no transport subsidy and limited housing available tomost athletes competing. 65 “Se Ha Constituido El Grupo Parlamentarío de Educación Física Y Deportes.” El Mundo Deportivo, June 18, 1936.66 This language is interesting for a centrist nation such as France. The press in Barcleona only made reference to the competing teams as “nations” 67 L’Humanite  June 8 1936 quoted in Kidd, B. “The Popular Front and the 1936 Olympics.” Canadian Journal of the History of Sport and Physical Education 11, no. 1 (1980): 1-18

Basqueland span France and Spain and thus independent identities for these regions would come at the expense of French identity68. However with these nations forming part of a popular front that linked Paris to Madrid, there was not a danger of animosity between Paris and Barcelona or Bilbao. On the reverse side of this coin was Alsace-Lorraine, a territory that had been ceded to France at Versailles but was culturally closer to Berlin. By permitting this nation to compete under its own flag, Blum’s government showed a genuine commitment to apopular front identity and self-determination that overcame the divisions of the more centralizing form of nationalism which France was accustomed to. This embracing of various and tiered identities wasfar from common at the time and was certainly not represented in otherOlympic movements.

Despite Blum’s bold stance, the support of the popular Olympics remained highly divisive in France, with teams from the divided nationattending events in Berlin as well as Barcelona. Whilst a popular front government held power, this hold on power was too tenuous to take big risks over sport. Blum’s decision to sit on the fence over this issue shows his support for the event was tempered by his tenuousgrip on power. As we have seen, sport has the power to unite a nation,and the decision to boycott the Olympics entirely would have cost the support of vital sectors of the French population. For many governments in Europe, taking a stand on a sporting event was simply not worth the risk. They had allowed Germany significant leeway in itsviolation of the Versailles treaties and would continue to do the stance of the Catalan government reflects their unique stance and willingness to place sport at the forefront of diplomacy.

The largest donation to the popular Olympiad came from the Spanish government in Madrid which donated 300,000 pesetas to the games in June69. As well as a financial aid, this was an important symbolic donation from Madrid. Not only did the economic contribution make the events possible but it also increased the legitimacy of the events. 68 Although in both cases the national separatist movement was far weaker to the North of the Pyrenees and was often made up of those exiled from Spain rather than an organic sense of nationhood that opposed rule from Paris. 69 Mundo Deportivo 18th june 1936 Candau states that 400,00 pesetas were donated but provides no footnote for this claim

The support of a nation state allowed other governments to support team efforts in Barcelona without fear of offending the government in Madrid by supporting a Catalan separatist event. The support of Madridundermined notions that the games were fuelled solely by a Catalan separatist impulse but rather by a shared goal of popular identity within a unified popular front. Whilst the games certainly did embraceCatalan nationalism, the support of Madrid shows that this was a Catalan nation within a greater popular Spain and indeed a popular front embracing all of Europe. Whilst the games were more a creature of the popular sports movement in Catalonia than the popular front in Madrid, the support of the latter for the former was invaluable.

The support of their allies in Paris closely followed this financial contribution of Madrid’s popular front regime. France contributed 600,000 Francs70 (not 600,000 pesetas as noted in some texts71) to the COOP. The French popular front also subsidized travel to the games forparticipants72. In addition to this financial contribution to the hosting expense, the French government gave in kind aid to those traveling from and through France, arranging for special trains and even sending staff to support its athletes in Barcelona. The support of a nation state outside of the immediate Spanish context helped to lend further legitimacy to the games and give them the popular front seal of approval. France’s leadership of the popular front and its willingness to support the popular games (if not exclusively) helped the games to take on an important role in the international popular front narrative and bought them to the attention of groups who may have otherwise remained ignorant.

The Catalan Generalitat (regional government) added 100,000 Pesetas of its own73. The Barcelona Ajuntament (city council) helped with a cash 70 La Vanguardia 10th July 1936 At the rates of exchange published in La Vanguardia 7th June 1936 this was about 290,000 pesetas 71 Colomé, G., and J. Sureda. “Sport and international relations (1913-1939): the 1936 Popular Olympiad.” Centre d’Estudis Olímpics UAB. http://olympicstudies. uab. es/pdf/wp020_eng. pdf (accessed March 18, 2008).  72 Un tren especial desde Paris Mundo Deportivo, 6th July 193673 Candau, J. G., J. A. Samaranch, and G. P. B. Martínez. El deporte en la guerra civil. Espasa, 2007.  And Colomé, G., and J. Sureda pp40 “Sport and international relations (1913-1939): the 1936 Popular Olympiad.” Centre d’Estudis Olímpics UAB. http://olympicstudies. uab. es/pdf/wp020_eng. pdf (accessed March 18, 2008).  

donation (of an amount which is not listed in the press or other documents) and by preparing and providing accommodation and infrastructure that allowed the games to take place. The city itself took charge of finding accommodations for the events and their participants. Often this took the form of appeals to the population aswell as the use of city facilities such as the stadia, pools, placas and open spaces of the city. The support of the population as well ofthe government of the city was a key part of these games. Again they were not just popular in name but also in their very nature.

This international and multi- level funding once again contributes to the notion that the games were truly a creature of the international popular front.  It is important to note that there was not funding from Moscow or the Comintern, and that although the events may have been popularized through workers’ sport associations, there was a clear distinction between popular and workers’ sport. This is all in sharp contrast with the Berlin Games, funded exclusively by the Nazi government and exclusively promoting the elite and confrontational side of sports. The popular Olympics were an international endeavor and support for the games was not an attempt to increase the international standing, or economy of Spain (or Catalonia). The games used international channels but avoided those associated with elite sport and those closely controlled by the USSR. Indeed even the communist affiliated FCDO went out of its way to reject the idea that this was a “red” Olympics with Andrés Martín stating that “the reactionary press knowingly lies about this being a red Olympiad, you cannot believe them”74. Rather, this was a shared effort to foster an international identity and contribute to a common “popular” project. Those who stood to gain financially, and in terms of credibility, fromhosting the games were not those who funded them in the largest part and many of the participants came from farther afield than the financial support for the games. This was a redistribution of prestigeand status through sport, but this was about more than just sport. Thepopular Olympics were part of an international attempt at changing society through sport and through mutual understanding.

74  “la prensa reaccionaria miente a sabiendas cuando dice  que es una Olimpiada roja. Esto no lo puede creer nadie” Martín, Andrés. Mundo Obrero, June 29, 1936.

Nations and states

Opinion was divided on the inclusion of non-state nations in the games. In an effort to open the games to all regardless of their origin, the organizing committee went as far as to solicit Esperanto interpreters75 ! The games received support for the inclusion of separate Catalan and Basque teams from respective nationalists. However there was opposition from the republican camp as well as the right: Rafael Sanchez-Guerra, secretary to the president in Madrid andhimself president of Real Madrid FC stated that the events undermined “The complete fraternity of all the communities. It would be terrible if we fomented regional differences which don’t exist in other walks of life, they have to be removed from sport”76. Some members of the popular front felt that the inclusion of regional teams undermined unity in the face of a larger threat from fascism abroad and the reactionary forces at home. In their opinion even a good-natured competition introduced division in a time when unity was needed. Even in his appeal to Spanish nationalism, Sanchez-Guerra included the notion that separate identities were to be embraced and included. Rather than appealing to a homogeneous Spanishness, he recognized diversity within a greater Spanish nation stating that “Spain is one nation and Catalonia and the Basqueland are integral parts of it”77. However these “integral parts” of the Spanish nation were not, in his opinion, to compete with the capital. For some, Spain was the nation and Catalonia and the Basqueland were regions within it and nothing more. The popular Olympics (alongside previous years of popular politics) problematized this idea and introduced new and overlapping identities. These nations could exist within a broader popular front without the need for them to fight with Spain to establish that identity.

75 “Se Necesitan Interpretes,” July 6, 1936.76 “mas completa confratenizacion de todos los pueblos. Seria lamentable que aprovecharamos la nuestra para destacar unas diferencias regionales que, anunque existeran en otras actividades de la vida, en el deporte deberian desparecer” Candau, J. G., J. A. Samaranch, and G. P. B. Martínez. El deporte en la guerra civil. Espasa, 2007.77 “Espana es una sola nacion y Cataluna y Euskadi forman parte integrante de ella.” Candau, J. G., J. A. Samaranch, and G. P. B. Martínez. El deporte en la guerra civil. Espasa, 2007

The agreement of the popular front on many political and ideological fronts allowed for them to permit disunity in certain areas whilst remaining confident that their common core would not be shaken. The identities which bough people into the popular front were many and varied. Some were socialists, others left republicans and others liberal bourgeois. Many who had affiliated to the popular front explicitly opposed the homogeneity that Moscow had attempted to force upon previous European leftist movements. For the popular front to succeed, diversity was as important as agreement and it was necessary to permit a level of disagreement and competition on issues which did not pertain to the goals and ideology of the popular front. The popular games were a perfect example of the ability of the popular front to survive and even embrace disagreement whilst strengthening its common resolve to fight fascism and improve the lives of the people of Europe. Through using national identities to bring people together, the games aimed to broaden the support base of popular sportand popular front politics.

Events and attendance

Barcelona was the perfect city for an event that held this new international attitude at its core. As a port city with cultural and economic ties to the rest of Europe it was exposed to international influences much more than the rest of Spain.  As capital city of Catalonia, a nation without a fully independent state, it enjoyed an ambiguous relationship with nation statehood. It was the home of the Generalitat, which was in turn the home of the ERC with all that it represented in terms of pan left alliance and popular sports policy. This open attitude towards nations and states is illustrated by the teams registered to compete in the Olympiad; alongside nation states such as France, Sweden and Great Britain there were displaced Jews, Catalans, Basques, Galicians, Algerians. The event did not appeal exclusively to nations without states but allowed people to represent the identity that they best felt represented them. The perspective that the Catalans had on nationalism (that of a nation without a state) allowed them to take this more progressive stance on

nationalism without undermining their own identity and authority. The women’s football competition even included entries from the “united students of the world78” .The anti-fascist character of the games was illustrated by the inclusion of German and Italian political exiles representing the gap between their respective nations and the regimes in power in Berlin and Rome. This acceptance of a multitude of identities in the games, all united by a popular and progressive goal,ably illustrates the “popular” nature of the games and their “enlightened” approach to nationalism.

Overall 23 nations attended the games. The most numerously representedwere obvious those of the Iberian Peninsula; Catalonia, the Basqueland, Galicia and the rest of republican Spain all competed separately. The peninsular contingent was followed in size by France, which sent 1500 representatives. After this came 200 from Switzerland and around 50 from Holland, Belgium and the nations making up the UK79.In total there were 6,000 participants and 20,000 spectators scheduledto compete and enjoy the events of July 1936.In line with the broader identity of the popular front, people could compete in the colours of the nation which best defined them within that broad coalition. The basic agreement on politics and international relations allowed peopleto more clearly define their own identity, be that as part of a nationwith a state or one without the apparatus of statehood. Clearly, despite organizational difficulties and a short period between the games inception and occurrence, the popular Olympics were not set to be a failure. The organizational demands of transporting, housing and feeding so many people were not light. This was an impressive undertaking on the part of the city and one, which, although never realized fully, shows the depth of support and infrastructure behind the popular sport movement.

Alongside the sporting events of the Olympiad there was a full cultural program that included events not normally seen in the

78 Interestingly this is a return to the origin of the word nation Renan, E. Qu’est-Ce Qu’une Nation?, 1882.79 The British representation came through the British workers’ sport association and thus the group is combined for statistics . It is unclear if the competitiors would have declared for Englad, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland or for the UK as a whole.

Olympiads of the IOC. Amongst the non-sporting events were dances, folklore storytellings, art displays (by the likes of Sert and Clara) and competitions for writing about sport. The popular Olympics were anevent dedicated to the holistic building of new nations and new citizens, not just to elite sporting performance as such they took in a broader range and scope of events. Nations require a cultural and intellectual body as well as a physical one, the popular front aimed to use these games to create an all embracing popular identity. Indeed in some official correspondence the event was billed as the “international week of sport and folklore”80. These cultural and folklore eventss included Morocco, Holland, Germany and France as wellas the Iberian nations. There were to be performances of traditional dances, storytelling and examples of traditional Catalan parades and celebrations including the famous Castells. Through sharing these traditions and tales, the nations who came together through the games were more likely to leave with a better mutual understanding. Rather than competing, they would share and exchange their unique cultures and appreciate the value of being bought together under a popular banner. The inclusion of folklore in an Olympiad was a unique feature of the popular games; it fused the popular with the national and the old ways of bonding communities with the new. Where once therehad been songs and dances there were now running tracks and football pitches.

In celebrating the cultures of others, as well as those of the host nation, the Barcelona games again distinguished themselves from their counterparts. Not only were these to be an Olympics which celebrated sporting achievement but also other forms cultural and artistic endeavor. Neither the workers’ games nor the Berlin Olympics offered this chance for people to meet over culture as well as over sport. Often sports in general and Olympiads in particular were the subject of competition and divisions, these games helped to break down those divides and in doing so represented a unique use of the Olympiad for the creation of a unique identity.

80 “La Representación Folklórica de Cataluña En La Semana Popular.” El Mundo Deportivo, July 6, 1936.

Figure 1: The events were clearly labeled as a popular Olympics but shunned the workers’ moniker

Alongside the cultural co-focus of the events, another unique element of the popular Olympiad was the multiple levels of competition that were planned for the games. Again, this movement away from purely elite competition served to reinforce the distinctly “popular” character of the games. As well as the elite events scheduled for the popular Olympiad, there were races for “enthusiasts in other categories to gauge their strength against sportsmen from other districts and countries81” and even complete novices. The participants

81 British Workers’ Sports Association. “Press Information: Barcelona Popualr Olympiad.” Trade union Congress, June 9, 1936. Warwick university digital

would not be selected by class or political ideology but merely by their will to compete. These were not “workers” events; they were truly “popular” contests for anyone wishing to enter. This was an important diversion, not just in the composition of the events but also in their purpose. Popular sport went beyond the elite level and took sport to the masses; indeed the games were for the masses. These events were not focused on the record performance in front of spectators, but rather on the ability of sport to bring people together through participation. Working athletes could better know their fellow workers through sharing the same field of play. Shared experience offered a way of understanding unity that no amount of speeches or readings could. The goal of these events was not to determine superiority, but to use sport as a tool for establishing a greater sense of fraternity. The absence of qualifying standards and the inclusion of differing levels of competition makes the popular nature and intent of these games very clear. The idea of these games was not to have a few athletes competing and thousands watching (as was the case in Berlin), but rather to have many enjoying sport and benefiting from it at different levels. The best athletes were not to be lauded above all others but merely to serve as examples and inspirethe population in general to take up sports and find friendship through them.

Along similar lines, women played a full and equal role in the games with the Club Femenino y de Deportes a key part of the organization of the event. Alongside a complete program of women’s events, the associatedcultural Olympiad even awarded essays on the importance of women’s sport. Women were not barred from competition in events that were often coded as “inappropriate” or “unfeminine”, as illustrated by the women’s football and throwing competitions. Furthermore women were able to compete as students, suggesting a support not just for women’ssport, but also women’s place in academia. This was a reflection of the growth in women’s sport under the republic (as discussed in a separate chapter) and the high quality of Catalonia’s sporting women. From their equality in terms of events, to the ideological support,

library.

and even their inclusion in event posters, women were very much welcome at the Popular Olympics.

As can be seen in the publicity posters for the games the events were not expected to be an example of the superiority of one race or gender. One poster shows men and women of various races dressed in various uniforms (including a red singlet) walking together under a banner which simply reads “olimpiada popular” and accompanied by the flag of the city of Barcelona. The inclusion of black athletes in muchof the promotional material is particularly notable given the relativepaucity of people of African descent in Barcelona at the time. Although there is little rhetoric on the subject,t one can assume thiswas at least in part a nod to the leadership of the boycott movement in the USA by the African American groups who strongly opposed the racism of the Nazi regime. Every element of these games exuded a popular modernity, from the painted planes used to advertise them to the more traditional posters; the image portrayed was that the future lay in the popular front and its cross class identity.

Figure 2:

Figure 3: Centelles, Augustí. Avioneta Con Publicidad de La Olimpiada Popular, Barcelona , 1936. Gelatin silver print, 1936.

The press commented readily on the popular Olympics (as well as the Berlin games). Whilst most of the moderate Catalanist press approved, la Publicitat, a mouthpiece for intellectual Catalanism, raised objections to the Olympic nomenclature. They felt that the games were a politicized alternative to the games in Berlin (which, following Brundage’s line of reasoning, they felt were not political). This objection to the games led to a reclassification in some media82 and a move away from the “Olympic” moniker. Rather than challenging the Olympism in Berlin, La Publicitat preferred to construct the games in Barcelona as something entirely distinct. The terms Olimpiada popular and Semana Popular de Deporte y de Folklore seem to have been used concurrently83 inthe contemporary media, perhaps depending on the stance of the newspaper in question or merely what sounded best to the author. In reality there was much to be gained from challenging Hitler’s Olympics, and the official documentation and publicity materials for the games continued to refer to them as the Olimpiada popular and this

82 Pujadas, X., and C. Santacana. “The Popular Olympic Games, Barcelona 1936: Olympians and Antifascists.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 27, no. 2 (1992): 139.83 “Popular Olympics” and “Popular week of sport and folklaw” respectively - LaVanguardia June 25, 1936

is how they were billed at the stadium the day before they were due toopen.

The right wing press was more vicious in its criticism. They began with critiques closely mirroring the ideology of their right wing counterparts in Berlin, including labelling the events a “Jewish” games. Noting the use of Spanish as well as Catalan in publicity posters, La Veu de Catalunya criticized the national integrity of the events. Clearly, the notion of popular Catalonia existing in harmony with a popular Spain was not one that the right agreed with84 . The organizers were quick to respond that the games welcomed all apart from those directly opposed to the ideology of the event “Clearly thisis a popular games: that is to say of the people and for the people, and in which, therefore, fascists have no place , having shown themselves to be  enemies of popular culture”85 . Despite the best efforts of the right wing press, these games would not be sectarian but would welcome all genders races and classes who opposed the exclusivity of both Berlin and Moscow.

Related to the all-embracing “popular sport” of the games was the controversy over the Barcelona Stadia. Having been constructed for theexposition element of the world’s fair in 1929, the stadia had been funded by the city and were supposed to be the property of the people.The left leaning Catalan press looked dimly upon the use of the stadiafor elite events (such as world title boxing bouts). Associated with these events was the charging of high entry fees. This caused complaints that the public should not be charged twice to merely watchothers using the facilities which belonged to the people of the city. The popular Olympics were sympathetic to the issues raised around stadia and addressed them in two ways: They allowed free entry for spectators and they included many events, which were aimed at non-elite athletes. Once again they differentiated themselves from the

84 Pujadas, X., and C. Santacana. “L’altra Olimpiada.” Barcelona “36. Barcelona, Llibres de l”Index, 1990.85 “claro que se trata de unos juegos populares: es decir del pueblo y para el pueblo, y en los que por tanto no tienen puesto los fascistas, probados enemigos de la cultura popular” Martín, Andrés. Mundo Obrero, June 29, 1936.

existing elite model for sport. This more accessible Olympiad differedhugely from the expensive elite sports events and the party-limited workers’ games. This Olympiad’s embrace of popular sport as a way of improving the health of the nation, and the sense of fraternity amongst nations, was entirely different from the Nazi attempts to use the Berlin games to prove their Eugenic point. This was to be an eventthat was more about participating than spectating and about experiencing unity not enmity. The stadia would be used in their fullest possible sense, not only by the people of Catalonia but of theworld.

Figure 4: Alongside the Stadia in Montjuïc other elements of the exposition were used to host events including the “Poble Espanyol” which was a village containing representative architecturefrom all regions of Spain.

Another differentiation between the experience of the “popular” games and that of athletes in their more elite counterpart in Berlin was the

arrangement for housing the participants. Rather than an Olympic village86 the athletes were sleeping in various “popular” hotels (more like workers dormitories) and apartment buildings around the city87. The visitors were very much living amongst the population as their guests and fellows rather than being cloistered away in a separate compound and not allowed to see the real city. Once again this undermined the idea of “elite” competitors and the “masses” spectating. Obviously in part this was a policy forced by the short time frame and low budget of the events but it also served a useful role in the positioning of the games. Given the nature of the events, and their rejection of the idea that sport and athletes had to be separated from politics and the people this was not just a symbolic orcost cutting measure but one designed to encourage a sense of fraternity.

Clearly what was planned for the 19th of July and the days thereafter was indeed a dramatic departure from both workers’ Olympiads and the IOC approved games. It was set to use sport in a new way to achieve a set of goals that were not previously associated with sports. This wasneither a political, nor a sporting, nor a solely a Catalan event but very much an attempt to use physical culture to change global identity. Sadly the outcome of these attempts will never be known. As the organizers completed their last day of tiring work in the stadium above Barcelona, many were so exhausted that they slept in the stands.The next day they woke early, but for the wrong reasons. The 19th of July went down in history not as the first day in a new era of sports and popular culture, but as the beginning of the coup that led to the Spanish civil war. The organizers of the games woke up to the sound ofgunshots in the city below, and instead of running to the finish line of a race they ran to the barricades and buildings that Barcelona usedto defend itself against the nationalist coup. Although there would beno medals awarded in the popular Olympics, the first victory in this new contest went to the popular government with the coup failing in Catalonia. Despite the defeat of the coup in the city the first casualty of the battle was the popular Olympics. A nation at war had

86 This concept was pioneered at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics 87 EL Mundo Deportivo 25th July 1936 and Candau, J. G., J. A. Samaranch, and G. P.B. Martínez. El deporte en la guerra civil. Espasa, 2007.  

neither the time nor resources to reorganize the games and so they, along with much of the popular Catalan dream, fell victim to the nationalist rising and dictatorship.

Conclusions

One persisting legacy of the Barcelona games in legend is that many ofthe athletes who came to participate in the popular Olympics stayed inSpain to defend their popular ideals and formed the embryonic core of the International brigades. It is certain that athletes were affected by the conflict whether or not they volunteered. Alongside the cancellation of the games, and difficulties returning home, French competitors were wounded by a plane strafing the streets88. La Vanguardiaon the 24th of July, noted that a large volume of athletes had gatheredoutside the Generalitat to thank the city for its kind welcome and that “they offered to help to Catalonia in whatever way they could at that time”89.  The athletes praised the heroic response of the city to the military coup and “many” are said to have joined the militia and offered to form a column to go to Zaragoza 90. However the precise number of those who came for the games and stayed to defend the ideal which the games stood for remains hard to come by. El mundo Deportivo of the 25th of July stressed that the Athletes stuck in Barcelona did not want for supplies and felt assured of the security of their return91. At first the coup seemed like an embarrassment to a democratic Catalonia. Just at the time they had assured the world a warm welcome and a demonstration of the gains made by their political system, the fragility of that system’s existence was thrown into sharp relief. Eventually most of those foreign participants in attendance who wishedto leave were able to escape by ship and then return home via France. That same journey was made in reverse by the many brave volunteers who

88 Benavides, M. D. Guerra y revolución en Cataluña:(reportaje). Ediciones Tenochititlan, 1946. Quoted in Candau, J. G., J. A. Samaranch, and G. P. B. Martínez. El deporte en la guerra civil. Espasa, 2007 pp 4289 “Ademas ofrecieron su concurso en las actividades de Cataluna para cuando convega en los actulaes momentos”- Informacion Catalana La Vanguardia 24th July 1936 pp190 “muchos de los... Representaciones Extranjeras de athletismo se han alistado en las milicias” Informacion Catalana La Vanguardia 24th July 1936 pp191 EL Mundo Deportivo 25th July 1936 pp1

came to the aid of the republic and the ideals which it had aimed to show to the world through the popular games.

Alongside the athletes from outside the Iberian Peninsula, many Spanish athletes from other regions were stranded in Barcelona, cut off from their homes and families by the rising. Some found themselvesin a republic that no longer existed in their homes, and stayed on to defend it. They made use of the media to send messages home and many ended up joining Catalan Militias when they found their homes and families were no longer under the same government as when they had left just days before. The popular games had aimed to create an international coalition around basic shared ideals. Whilst the games never took place, something of their spirit was adopted by the international brigades and the popular militia. No more vivid spirit of fraternity and cooperation exists than in those early days of the civil war when men and women fought side by side in defense of a dreamwhich was in very real peril.

The discourse employed by the foreign participants on their departure is interesting; they thank the people of Catalonia for their welcome, and praise the Catalan resistance to the military coup. This seems to suggest that the athletes perceived the games as being hosted by Catalonia and noticed their distinct identity92. Those who had most fully embraced the ideology of the popular front, and had travelled inorder to compete in the “popular” Olympics, were ready to recognize the separateness of Catalonia from Spain. This separation can only have been enhanced as the notion of which government and ideology controlled Spain had just been thrown into doubt. The idea of the athletes being international soldiers in a Catalan popular militia93 fits perfectly with the conception outlined above of many different national ideologies fitting into one “popular” ideology.  Although there were undoubtedly some athletes who stayed to fight, only a smallfraction of the total of 6,000 participants did not return home. This touching display of solidarity with a struggle which, for visiting 92 Informacion Catalana La Vanguardia 24th July 1936 pp193 Orwell tells of Catalans who fought with the international Brigades rather than the Spanish Militia reasoning that they were no more Spanish than the other members of this global coalition. Orwell, G. Homage to Catalonia. Mariner Books, 1980.

participants was not their own, remains an enduring image and example of the popular identity created during this period.

The popular Olympics occupy a unique space in the history of sports, politics and nationalism. They subvert much of what we expect from those areas. As historians of nationalism we look for binary oppositions, nations are expected to define themselves in opposition to other nations. In sport we look for a completion between fierce rivals, for a victor and a vanquished party. The popular Olympics subverted these assumptions by placing nations within an internationalfraternity. National identity was only one of the pillars of identity that the popular front embraced but this identity existed in cooperation with others, not in competition. Spain and Catalonia couldco-exist in the promotion of a games which celebrated an internationalfraternity, and an autonomous Catalan identity, within a greater popular front. The Catalan government promoted a progressive, tolerant, educated identity that embraced both Catalan nationalism (asevidenced by the Catalan teams) and popular internationalism (shown bythe rhetoric and title of the games) and did not see these as mutuallyexclusive. Much like today’s “Europe of the nations” the popular frontposited an overarching identity that allowed the cooperative existenceof smaller nations than the previous “nation-state” system. Whilst nations came to Barcelona to compete, they did so in a spirit of fraternity. National lines were not so inflexible that athletes and organizers were deeply invested in proving the superiority of one nation over another. Rather nations were seen as self-identified communities, between which there was the possibility of exchange and which did not hold an exclusive claim on identity. One could, for instance be simultaneously French and a member of the “Students of theworld” team at the popular games. The competition was one of fraternity with the Catalans welcoming foreign competitors into their homes and some of the competitors staying to fight an international struggle to defend the popular front against fascism and reaction. Thefact that all the participants, fans, spectators and organizers sharedsome element of their identity, and a basic commitment to “popular” physical culture and politics, allowed this games to fundamentally subvert the opposite messaging of the other 1936 Olympiad.

The Sports narrative of these games is also radically different to that which we have become accustomed to. Here sports were not, as in the rest of Europe at the time, sectarian activities. Activities were not divided into elite/ bourgeois competitions and an entirely separate workers’ and enthusiasts sports movement, each with its exclusive agenda and no interest in the other. The popular games witnessed unique phenomena that had its roots in the CCEP’s pioneeringuse of sports as a way of bringing classes together rather than using sports to reinforce differences. They used the space created by the boycott movement to introduce the popular sports model to people who would be inclined to appreciate it. In this conception were to be usedfor the good of all of society, they would improve the health of the nation, increase mutual understanding and promote a shared identity and cooperation towards a common goal. The aim was to improve the health of the national body, not only through having the workers take exercise, but also through bridging the divides which existed within cities and nations which were divided and communities which were stratified. The popular Olympics were not about celebrating record performance so much as creating community. As the British Trades unionCongress stated “the object is to counter the effects of the Berlin games with a popular sports festival, which does not hope for record feats, but does intend to preserve the Olympic spirit of peace and cooperation between nations”94.

The study of the popular Olympics of 1936 provides a novel insight into the ideology of the popular front and the ERC and the creation ofinternational identities. We often construct political and national identities as exclusive and base them on “othering”. However with the application of theories of identity which “happen” in different spheres and matter at different times, we can arrive at a new, more nuanced conception of nationalism within an international alliance. National identities within the popular front were merely one identity which existed within a wider fraternal framework, and were seen as complementary rather than competitive. This diverse identity was seen as something to be celebrated, safe in the knowledge that such

94 British Workers’ Sports Association. “Press Information: Barcelona Popualr Olympiad.” Trade union Congress, June 9, 1936. Warwick university digital library.

identity would not undermine the international goals of the popular front. This understanding of nationalism and identity has repercussions for today’s world and today’s sport. Catalonia led the world in using sport to heal international and interclass conflict andcreated a movement that it was able to spread through opposition to the Berlin games. Whilst both Berlin and Barcelona would be at war soon after their respective games, we cannot doubt that the Barcelona games contained much less of a belligerent message than those in Berlin.