Channel Five Marxism Today January 1982 33

KARPOV V. KORCHNOI Graham Taylor

'Chess, like love, like music, has the power masters — one of whom was Viktor Kor- to make men happy' wrote Siegbert Tar- chnoi — have 'defected to the West' in rasch. Had he been writing today, in the search of treasure trove. Chess, hitherto des- light of the Karpov-Korchnoi world cham- pised by the British media, suddenly became pionship match, he might have been forced 'newsworthy'. The game had acquired two have been understandable but in chess, as into a revision something along the lines of: very acceptable features: self-made million- there are only two players anyway, not men- 'Chess, like the cold war, like the BBC, has aires and cold war copy. tioning one of them verges somewhere near the power to make everyone thoroughly To arrive at a weekly chess programme, the absolutely ridiculous. But that was not miserable.' the BBC had to subject itself to some contor- the only obstacle the BBC had encountered. For not only BBC News but even the tions. Back in the 1960s, for example, chess For a start, it had soon become clear that, BBC's weekly chess programme started off players were told that chess was not 'visual' unlike the Czechoslovak grandmaster its coverage of the match in a typical cold enough for television. 'Laymen don't under- Ludek Pachman in 1968, Korchnoi was not war posture: they backed Korchnoi the stand. We professionals in the media are not a 'political dissident' at all. Korchnoi's 'dissi- 'Soviet dissident'. As Korchnoi's play had biased against chess because it is poor, dence' amounts to little more than personal declined in the last year and expert chess unfashionable and dominated by the Soviet grievances against other Soviet players and, opinion had unanimously predicted his Union. It's a technical question. Such a slow, to the embarrassment of all concerned, defeat long before the match started this boring game can't be presented on tele- against Ray Keene, his British second in the meant two months of televised gloom and vision'. Instead, 1960s television devoted previous match with Karpov. Halfway doom. most of its sporting viewing to instant, thrill- through the match Korchnoi was fined for Years ago the BBC would never have a-minute . . . cricket. swearing: it turned out that the dissident's landed itself in such a dire predicament The contortions continued in the first few critique of Karpov amounted merely to: because it simply ignored chess. Once upon programmes of the BBC's World Chess 'Stop squirming in your seat, you little a time, back in the 1960s, chess matches Championship series, which were almost creep.' Korchnoi's press adviser confirmed could be played in peace and a champion entirely devoted to Korchnoi and which this personalised approach with the Machia- could even walk down the road without a consisted of commentators surveying Kor- vellian statement: 'We constantly make it press adviser. Chessplayers inhabited a chnoi's lost positions with give-away lines plain that the main jailer of his (Korchnoi's) select cultural backwater unruffled by either such as 'there's not much hope. . . .'. A typi- family is not the Soviet government but, frantic publicity or by decent prizes. Bobby cal contortion: the BBC often uses the 'tech- personally, the champion of the world, Ana- Fischer, American superstar, changed all nical' argument against trade unionists on toly Karpov. We use this as psychological that. By demanding millions of dollars for strike that 'inevitably' reporters gravitate warfare.' This fits in with Korchnoi's auto- beating Soviet players at the game which towards the company spokesmen or the biography, which offended many chess- they had virtually monopolised since 1947, trade union officials because they are more players by personally slurring such popular he transformed chess tournaments into accessible to interview, more personable and players as Mikhail Tal, and which revealed a financial bonanzas. Since Fischer, over the articulate. Yet, in this match, it was admit- political consciousness that was little more last decade, nearly a dozen Soviet grand- ted that Anatoly Karpov was ever ready to than snobbery. He criticised Karpov, for 34 January 1982 Marxism Today Channel Five example, because, instead of hailing from amounted almost to adulation. The cold war Moreover, although McEnroe got more the cosmopolitan intelligentsia, he was angle was still upheld with further criticisms coverage than Borg on BBC news it is sim- 'working class and 150% Russian.' of the USSR — equivalent to tennis com- ply not true that in the specialised tennis The result of all this, together with Kor- mentators interspersing an Evonne Goola- programme McEnroe got so much more chnoi's increasing involvement with the gong Wimbledon final with attacks on the attention that protests from tennis fans del- dubious Anand Marg religious sect, was that Australian government's treatment of abori- uged the BBC. the BBC-2 programme reformed itself, in gines — but Karpov now received dispensa- Thus it was that the BBC checkmated mid-air. It replied to the chess public's tion from the general anathema. itself. Chessplayers rejected the role of demand that it keep politics out of chess (the Thirdly, at the end, some apology was pawns in a propaganda game. The slogan of main complaint) by narrowing the 'dissi- made for the initial bias. The main thrust of 'Keep politics out of sport', often used dence' down to the plight of Korchnoi's this was that Korchnoi, like Fischer, was a against the Left, well and truly rebounded. family. Even here the ground was muddied. 'remarkable individual'. Hartston claimed it Although the cold war edge was maintained Korchnoi had left his family five years ago in was the same in tennis: McEnroe got more to the bitter end (only some radical political the full knowledge that the strict Soviet emi- coverage than Bjorn Borg. The trouble with change will alter that) it was proved once gration laws would prevent their joining this is, that Botvinnik and Tal were also again that, if the case is a sound one, pres- him and had only recently made a deter- 'remarkable individuals' and were certainly sure from below can have considerable mined effort to get them out. not rubber-stamps for the Soviet govern- impact. Misery was spread but in the end the Secondly, their treatment of Karpov was ment, yet their world championships were BBC sounded more miserable than anybody so upgraded that in the last programme it never covered by a BBC special programme. else.