OSOAVIAHIM - decoding. Society for Assistance to Defense, Aviation and Chemical Construction

In 1927, in order to widely disseminate knowledge and skills, which are the basis for further training of citizens in the Armed Forces of the country, a public structure was created, which was given a specific name - the Society for Assistance to Defense, Aviation and Chemical Construction. Abbreviated - OSOAVIAHIM.

Creation of a new military-sports organization

This military-patriotic organization did not emerge from scratch - it was preceded by a number of structures, also aimed at training young people of pre-conscription age for military affairs, but each of them had a narrow focus, touching only a limited range of issues. Despite all their importance in strengthening the country's defense capability, in 1927, on the initiative of the People's Commissar of Defense KE Voroshilov, they were merged into a single organization - OSOAVIAHIM. The decipherment of the title given at the beginning of the article fully reflected the purpose of this newly formed structure. Its appearance, caused by another aggravation of the international situation, was very timely.

OSOAVIAHIM USSR from the first days of its existence has gained wide popularity among representatives of various age groups and social strata of the population. A year later, there were more than two million people in its ranks. Such an evident success of the undertaking was provided, first of all, by the assistance rendered by party and soviet organizations.

Broad national movement

Within the framework of this new nationwide program, covering the entire country, a network of training centers was set up, organized on the basis of manufacturing enterprises, as well as educational and research and design organizations. Attend a course of nurses, radio operators or a shooting club has become a familiar and in its own way prestigious occupation for both young people and middle-aged people.

All around the world, strong points were created, in which high school students, tomorrow's soldiers, were given the opportunity to get acquainted with the basics of military affairs, learn to own different types of small arms, and also operate a car or a tractor. At the end of the courses, of course, subject to the successful passing of exams, graduates received certificates of paramedics, paratroopers, radio operators, as well as other specialists in demand in time of war. Each graduate received also the breast badge of Osoaviachim, approved in 1928 by a special government decree.

Sharp arrows of Marshal Voroshilov

As part of the preparation of future defenders of the homeland, the management of OSOAVIAHIM (the abbreviation is presented at the beginning of the article), in close cooperation with the People's Commissariat of Health, the well-known complex "Ready for Work and Defense" (TRP) was developed. It included a list of standards that determined the level of physical training of persons of different age categories, the surrender of which was mandatory in those years.

Among other sports, this complex also included shooting so popular in those years. To further popularize it in 1932, the government decree established the honorary sign "Voroshilovsky Shooter". They were awarded the persons who achieved the greatest success in this discipline, the most in demand in the event of the outbreak of hostilities.

Sports victory of the Moscow shooters

Two years later in Moscow, the honorary owners were united into one of the first Voroshilov shooters in the country and were honored to represent the Soviet Union at international competitions, in which the arrows of one of the American amateur clubs also took part. Having defeated overseas athletes with a significant margin on points, the Muscovites showed the result, which many newspapers wrote in those days.

Pilots and parachutists - pupils of the Moscow club

Already at the beginning of the thirties, the primary organizations of OOOAVIAHIM appeared at the majority of the country's industrial enterprises, and sometimes they developed unprecedented activity. An example of this is the Moscow Aviation Plant. On its basis, public activists, without interruption from production, established training for pilots and other aviation specialists.

If the sports section or the shooting club at that time were available at almost every enterprise, the training of pilots brought the work of the primary organization of the plant to a whole new level. In the same place a paratrooper club was created, of which both men and women were members. In the history of world sports entered a record, established in 1934 by its participant Nina Kameneva, who left the plane at an altitude of three thousand meters and opened the canopy of the parachute just two hundred meters to the ground.

Assistance in organizing the cynological service

It is known that in the same years an exemplary Club of Service Dog Breeding was established to assist the country's border troops, as well as to the police in Moscow, on the basis of the city organization OSOAVIAHIM. His task was not so much the training of dogs intended for use in various types of guard and search services, but rather the training of beginning cynologists who expressed a desire to devote themselves to working with animals.

One of the children of OSOAVIAHIM is the famous St. Petersburg club of official dog breeding, which celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary recently. His achievements can not be overestimated. Suffice it to mention that it was in the city on the Neva that members of the club first organized such popular world and European championships for official dog breeding.

The actions of the OSOAVIAHIM in preparation for the war

When the first centers of the future world war broke out in Europe in 1939, and the threat of an attack on our country became quite obvious, along with the Armed Forces, OSOAVIAHIM conducted extensive preparations for it. The deciphering of his abbreviation not without reason marks as a paramount task the all-round assistance to the defense of the country. The Central Council of the organization in those years decided to reorganize the educational process and replace the circle training system with the creation of units similar to those provided for in the army.

As a result of work carried out in the shortest possible time, in the pre-war years only about three thousand two hundred self-defense groups were trained in the capital, capable of accepting a battle with a conventional adversary, and by the beginning of the war their number had increased to four thousand. In addition, over 1100 anti-aircraft and chemical defense posts were created, the personnel of which exceeded 700 thousand people. The indisputable merit of the employees of the Osoaviakhim of Moscow and most of the major cities of the country is also the training of the civilian population in the situation of enemy air raids.

Attempts to transform the old social structure

OSOAVIAHIM as a single organization existed until 1948, after which it was reorganized by the government decision and divided into three separate societies, each of which limited the scope of its activities to a certain scope. So, the first of them specialized exclusively in the army, the second - aviation, the third - the navy.

However, this separation proved to be ineffective, and in 1951 all three branches were again merged into a single structure, called DOSAAF and in many respects similar to the previous OSOAVIAHIM, the abbreviation of which emphasized the internal unity of the Armed Forces of the country aimed at its defense. Today this structure is also abolished, and its functions are transferred to the Ministry of Emergency Situations.