As we all know, the USSR did not participate in the Olympic Games following the 1917 Revolution up to the 1952 Helsinki Games, claiming the Olympics were a "bourgeois capitalistic enterprise". The Soviets did have their own homegrown sporting events at the time, particularly the Worker's Spartakiads. WI soon after 1917, Lenin has a change of heart and feels the Bolshevik regime could gain wider recognition if it send teams to the Olympics beginning with the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. By 1948, following WW2 victory, the Soviets felt they were really able to compete on the international sporting level at long last. It would have been interesting to see how Soviet athletes from the 1920-48 era would have fared against the Olympic legends of that time such as Nurmi, Weissmuller, Crabbe, Didrickson, and even Jesse Owens.