'Ready to ...' Labour and Defence Badges

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Just added a couple more of these pre-war Labour and Defence badges to my collection.

I love the chain design of the badges

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Ready to Anti-Aircraft & Chemical Defence of USSR

A badge of the OSOAVIAKhIM USSR which was a Civil Defence organisation created in 1927. It had close ties with the Komsomol and provided recruitment for Soviet Defence forces from mid 1930's as Europe geared itself for war

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Ready to Labour & Defence Sports badge.

This badge was issued to sports teams of factories, state farms, schools etc when 80% of their members achieved the 'Ready for Labour & Defence' qualification

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Ready to Medical Defence of the USSR

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The history of these badges is a new learning curve for me and is not dissimilar to the Hitler Youth activities and awards (perhaps without as much Ideological Indoctrination).
Here is some further info....

Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR (Gotov K Trudu I Oborone SSSR) abbreviated as GTO, was the All-Union physical culture training programme, introduced in the USSR on March 11, 1931 on the initiative of the Komsomol. It was a complement to the Unified Sports Classification System of the USSR. While the latter provided Soviet physical education system requirements only for athletes, GTO was a programme for all Soviet people of almost all ages. By the year 1976, 220 million people were awarded GTO badges, while in 1986 the tests were passed by 33.9 million people.

Initially the GTO had one level with three age groups. To earn the GTO badge, an individual needed pass 21 tests. Sport in the country was only beginning to develop however there were a few physical culture collectives run by enterprises and organisations that could organise physical training, the GTO provided the unique possibility to involve everyone into sports activities, hence the variety of tests. On December 7, 1932, the second level was introduced for the same three age groups. This was done to stimulate the improvement of skills of those who passed the first level. The second level had 24 tests. Each test result could be one of two: "passed" and "not passed".

The next change followed in 1934, when the third level had been introduced, for two further age groups: children 13-14 and 15–16 years of age. This level had a separate name - "Be Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR" , Russian translation abbreviated as "BGTO". This defined the structure of the GTO for many years: it had "BGTO", "GTO 1st level" and "GTO 2nd level" stages until 1972. After the structure of the GTO programme was established, the next step was to deal with the system of tests, applicable to evaluate physical conditions of different age groups of the population.

In 1939 the tense international situation caused the inclusion of tests, necessary to prepare young people for service in the Red Army, and to prepare all the population for the possibility of war. Such disciplines as "crawling over", "speedy foot march", "throwing a bunch of grenades", "rope (also pole and tree) climbing", "carrying over a cartridge box", various martial arts etc were introduced . Most of them were removed in post-World War II revisions. Only "throwing a grenade" and "50 m small bore rifle shooting" (men only) remained.

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Just added this nice 1936-1940 Leningrad Mint variant

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Now in hand and a few more images.

The Leningrad Mint is one of the world's largest mints. It was founded by Peter the Great in 1724 on the territory of Peter and Paul Fortress, so it is one of the oldest industrial enterprises in Saint Petersburg.