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World Championship Disorder Edward Winter (2002)
A tall, apparently unassuming world chess champion. Numerous rivals, each with his own claims and pretensions. In particular, an active former champion liable to be relegated to the sidelines yet widely seen as deserving a chance to regain his crown. Interminable arguments about how the challenger should be selected. Fervid calls for the ‘dictator’ President of FIDE to be thrown out. A general sense of chaos and animosity. We are, of course, describing the chess world of 65 years ago, in the summer of 1937 … As noted in C.N. 2473, the contract for the 1935 championship match specified that, if defeated, Alekhine would be entitled to a rematch ‘at a time acceptable to Dr Euwe, in view of his profession’. Euwe narrowly won that 1935 contest, and page 393 of the August 1936 BCM reported that when the two players met in Amsterdam on 19 June 1936 ‘the arrangement was then confirmed to begin the return match for the world championship title in October 1937’, in various Dutch cities.
Max Euwe
In the meantime, FIDE was still trying to introduce rules on the selection of the
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challenger, applicable to subsequent matches. Its congress in Warsaw on 28-31 August 1935 had passed the following resolution: ‘Each year the above-mentioned Committee [comprising Oskam, Alekhine, Louma, Przepiórka and Vidmar] shall draw up a list of masters who have the right to challenge the world champion. Those who in the past six years have three times won or divided the first prize in international tournaments with a minimum of 14 competitors, of which at least 70% are international masters, shall automatically be included on this list.’ Source: Compte-rendu du XIIe congrès, Varsovie, 28-31 août 1935, page 10. At the following year’s General Assembly (Lucerne, 24-26 July 1936), the FIDE President, Alexander Rueb of Holland, stated that it was for the chess federations comprising the Assembly to take impartial decisions regarding the world championship, whilst also listening to the opinion of the world champion and other leading masters directly concerned. He hoped that the 1937 General Assembly in Stockholm would be able to take a final decision on the drafts already prepared. In Lucerne (25 July 1936) the texts adopted included the principle that the world championship must be decided by a match and not a tournament. (Source: Compterendu du XIIIe congrès, Lucerne, 24-26 juillet 1936, pages 5 and 9.)
Alexander Rueb
Subsequently, the Dutch Chess Federation came up with a proposal (given on page 171 of the June 1937 Tijdschrift van den Koninklijken Nederlandschen Schaakbond) that in 1938 there should be a double-round candidates’ tournament bringing
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together the loser of the return match between Euwe and Alekhine, plus Botvinnik, Capablanca, Fine, Flohr, Keres, Reshevsky and possibly one other master.
FIDE General Assembly, 1937
The FIDE General Assembly duly met in Stockholm in mid-August 1937, and the detailed report by Erwin Voellmy in the October 1937 Schweizerische Schachzeitung (pages 145-147) presented a tableau of administrative and linguistic confusion. The Dutch proposal for a tournament was turned down by eight votes to four. The Committee had recommended Capablanca as the official candidate, but after an inconclusive first round of voting (Flohr 6, Capablanca 4, Fine, Botvinnik and Keres 1), it was Flohr (with eight votes, against five for Capablanca) who was nominated. Even so, in a subsequent session (on 14 August) Euwe declared that if he won his rematch against Alekhine that autumn he was prepared to meet Flohr in