clubs

club

C0424000 (klŭb)n.1. a. A stout heavy stick, usually thicker at one end, suitable for use as a weapon; a cudgel.b. An implement used in some games to drive a ball, especially a stick with a protruding head used in golf.c. Something resembling a club.2. Games a. A black figure shaped like a trefoil or clover leaf on certain playing cards.b. A playing card with this figure.c. clubs(used with a sing. or pl. verb) The suit of cards represented by this figure.3. A group of people organized for a common purpose, especially a group that meets regularly: a garden club.4. The building, room, or other facility used for the meetings of an organized group.5. Sports An athletic team or organization.6. A nightclub.v. clubbed, club·bing, clubs v.tr.1. To strike or beat with a club or similar implement.2. To use (a firearm) as a club by holding the barrel and hitting with the butt end.3. To gather or combine (hair, for example) into a clublike mass.4. To contribute (money or resources) to a joint or common purpose.v.intr.1. To join or combine for a common purpose; form a club.2. To go to or frequent nightclubs: was out all night clubbing.

[Middle English, from Old Norse klubba.]

clubs

(klʌbz) pl n (Card Games) the suit of cards marked with the black trefoil symbol

Translations

黑梅花组

club

(klab) noun1. a heavy stick etc used as a weapon. 棍棒2. a bat or stick used in certain games (especially golf). Which club will you use? （高尔夫球等的）球棒 3. a number of people meeting for study, pleasure, games etc. the local tennis club.俱乐部4. the place where these people meet. He goes to the club every Friday.俱乐部的会所5. one of the playing-cards of the suit clubs. （一张）梅花纸牌 verb – past tense, past participle clubbed – to beat or strike with a club. They clubbed him to death.用棍棒打clubs noun plural (sometimes treated as noun singular) one of the four card suits which is black and shaped like a clover. the six of clubs.黑梅花组

Do they rent out golf clubs? (US)
Do they hire out golf clubs? (UK) → 能租到高尔夫球杆吗？

Clubs

in the socialist countries, mass cultural and educational institutions that organize the leisure time of the workers and contribute to their communist upbringing, self-education, and development of creative abilities. In the USSR palaces and houses of culture, clubs, and village reading rooms fall into this category.

The creation of a network of clubs in the USSR was begun in November 1920, when a decree of the Council of People’s Commissars established in the system of the RSFSR People’s Commissariat for Education the Glavpolitprosvet (Central Committee for Political Education). The following was noted in a resolution of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (Bolshevik) in March 1921: “For the successful execution of its fundamental task, which is the conducting of communist propaganda and agitation among the masses, Glavpolitprosvet must acquire flexibility like that of the party apparatus, delicacy and quick response to the needs of the masses, and liveliness and must combine these qualities with systematism, precision, swiftness, and work on the basis of a known plan.” In 1922 in a letter to the blue-collar and white-collar workers of the Elektroperedacha State Electric Power Station, V. I. Lenin wrote about the need “to turn the club into one of the most important centers of education for workers” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 45, p. 271). A. V. Lunacharskii, the first people’s commissar for education, noted: “Club work is of great importance. A club must be a slice of socialism, a place for study as well as rest and for the spreading of the basic principles of the new socialist understanding of life and socialist construction among the people” (Desiatiletie revoliutsii i kul’tura, 1927, pp. 12–13).

In 1913 in Russia (within the present borders of the USSR) there were 237 clubs and people’s houses altogether, the majority of which were under the constant surveillance of the police. Since the establishment of Soviet power, in the course of the cultural revolution, clubs have developed on a broad scale. In 1922 there were 12,200 clubs; in 1940, 118,000; and in 1970 more than 134,000 (including 2,300 publicly operated clubs). On the basis of the authority that has jurisdiction over them, clubs in the USSR are categorized as state, trade union, kolkhoz, or other kinds of clubs.

The basic areas of activity are mass political work; job, military-patriotic, moral, and aesthetic training; scientific-atheistic propaganda; sports work among the masses; and nonprofessional artistic creativity. The activities, forms, and methods of work are constantly being perfected. Along with the use of traditional forms (lectures, reports, evening sessions on particular themes, concerts, and so forth), the clubs are introducing and assimilating new forms of political education and mass cultural activity. Among these new forms there are people’s universities (of economics, law, culture, health, and so forth) and amateur groups based on common interests (for example, in technical fields, art studies, and sports). Some clubs offer self-financed courses in typing, cutting and sewing, knitting, and decorative needlework, as well as workshops in decorative design and other artistic skills. The honored title of “People’s” is bestowed upon the best of the regularly functioning groups of amateur arts clubs, those having a fully developed personnel and a repertoire of ideological and artistic value.

Table 1. Expansion of club systems in the USSR
			1950	1970
¹Public clubs are not grouped according to type or departmental affiliation
²The decrease in the number of reading rooms is explained by the transformation of some of them into clubs of a higher level, village houses of culture
Total number of clubs			125,419	1,340,204¹
Clubs under the Ministry of
	Culture of the USSR		80,141	90,161
		Raion houses of culture	4,506	3,060
		City houses of culture and clubs	356	2,064
		Village clubs and houses of culture	34,795	79,350
		Reading rooms and other clubs	40,484	5,687²
Kolkhoz clubs			32,116	16,555
Trade union clubs			10,335	21,639
Clubs of other departments and organizations			2,827	3,404

Displaying constant concern for the development of cultural and educational work, the most immediate goal of the Communist Party is the perfection of the system of providing cultural services for the population, the heightening of the role of clubs in sociopolitical life, and the organization of people’s leisure time.

The experience of the USSR in creating and developing a system of clubs is being successfully used by countries of the socialist fraternity. Thus, in the Polish People’s Republic, województwo (provincial) palaces of culture, powiat (district) palaces of culture, and village clubs are doing mass political work and cultural and educational work. In the People’s Republic of Bulgaria the basic type of cultural and educational institution is the people’s reading hall, which has an age-old history: it is a club, a library, a music and arts school, and a workers’ place of rest all in one. Similar clubs serving the cause of the communist upbringing of workers have also been created in the other socialist countries.

REFERENCE

Lenin, V. I. Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 41, pp. 398–400; vol. 44, pp. 155–75.

L. N. TIUTIKOV and P. P. KHARLANOV