A.E. Senn --- "This is a manuscript that I prepared in 1989-1990, in the same period in which I wrote "Lithuania awakening". The collapse of the Soviet state left the very rationale of this text in uncertainty, and my involvement in Lithuanian affairs in any case drew my attention away from it. I used parts of this work in my book "Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games", but I had neither the time nor the energy to try to bring it up to date. Now I have decided to revive it for use in my teaching program at VDU, making clear that this was written in the Soviet Union's last years. This is "a period piece," recounting how I looked at the Soviet SportsWorld fifteen years ago."