Between 16 and 24 June 1954 a match was held in New York’s Hotel Roosevelt between the Soviet and the US chess teams. The eight-board, four-round match ended with a decisive 20-12 victory for the Soviets. In an article for the New York Times ahead of the match, US chess champion Samuel Reshevsky shared his thoughts on how the Soviets (whom he kept calling ‘the Russians’) became so good at chess and why this was so important to them. The Britisch Chess Magazine have reproduced this article, which shares a view on the role chess had, both as an internal and external weapon, for the Soviets.