In article ,
wrote:
On this matter I must basically agree with Parr. In his
autobiography, Botvinnik describes how he himself was the main author
of the regulations FIDE adopted for world championship matches and
challenger qualifying. I'm not sure whether they were then "imposed"
on FIDE, or FIDE just adopted them willingly, but either way Botvinnik
and his Soviet supporters got what they wanted.

Does or did anyone think it mattered? For the couple of
decades from 1948 until Larsen and then Fischer became serious
contenders, the WC and the Olympiads were Soviet monopolies. If
the WCs had not been Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky,
the most likely alternatives were Keres, Bronstein, Geller, Korchnoi
and others from the USSR. Reshevsky, Najdorf, Szabo, Gligoric and
so on were strong GMs, but it's hard to argue that any of them bar
just possibly Reshevsky on top form were serious contenders for the
title [as opposed to likely qualifiers for the Candidates].

If the WC match is between Soviet GMs and held in the USSR,
it's hard to argue that any other country should have had much of
a say in the match conditions. Whether Keres, Bronstein, Smyslov
and Tal were hard done by is "interesting", even important, esp when
assessing Botvinnik's [in particular] greatness as a player, but
largely a matter of internal Soviet politics.

In 1972 it all changed ....

--
Andy Walker
Nottingham