Soviet Chess School

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The Soviet Chess School was founded by Lenin in 1920. While the majority of the Bolsheviks thought chess a game of the upper class with it's knights, bishops, king and queen, Lenin thought it improved the mind. It's methods proved very successful and it produced world champions Mikhail Botvinnik, Vassily Smyslov, Tigran Petrosian, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Although the USSR is now history the chess school survives and continues to produce strong players such as Vladimir Kramnik who also became world chess champion.