  spartakiade (or spartakiad) initially was the name of an international sports event which ceased taking place after 1937. later spartakiads were organized as national sport events of the eastern bloc countries. the games were organized by red sport international. ==background== the soviet union attempted to use spartakiads to both oppose and supplement the olympics.serious fun: a history of spectator sports in the ussr. robert edelman, pg 149 (in russian, there is a certain parallelism in the names: "spartakiada" and "olimpiada".) the name, derived from the name of the slave rebel leader, spartacus,great soviet encyclopedia, 3rd edition, volume 24 (part 1), p. 286, moscow, sovetskaya entsiklopediya publisher, 1976 was supposed to symbolize proletarian internationalism because spartacus' revolt united slaves from diverse ethnic backgrounds within the roman empire. as a classical figure, spartacus also stood directly in contrast to the aristocratic nature of the ancient olympic games on which the modern "capitalist" olympics were, according to the soviet hierarchy, supposedly based. the first winter spartakiad was held in february 1928 in oslo, and the first summer spartakiad was held in august 1928 in moscow. ==list of spartakiads== ;summer * 1928 - moscow * 1931 - berlin * 1936 - barcelona (cancelled) * 1937 - antwerp ;winter * 1928 - oslo * 1936 - oslo ==national events== ===soviet union===   the first spartakiads in the ussr took place in 1923 within formations of the red army and the spartak youth physical culture organization in petrograd.spartakiad at great soviet encyclopedia the moscow spartakiad in 1928 was also known as the all-union spartakiad, while it involved participation of countries (17) outside of the soviet union. since the start of the 1930s in the soviet
Multi-sport_events