The first Spartakiads in the USSR took place in 1923 within formations of the Red Army and the Spartak Physical Culture organization in Petrograd.

[5] In 1952, the Soviet Union decided to join the Olympic movement, and international Spartakiads ceased, but the term continued to exist for internal sports events in the Soviet Union of different levels, from local up to the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR (Russian: Спартакиада народов СССР, Spartakiada narodov SSSR[6]).

[4] These numbers however have been frequently called into question due to the low reliability and ideological bias of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

[7] The Winter and Summer Spartakiads of the Peoples of the USSR were each commemorated on a series of postage stamps, released in millions of copies.

The name Spartakiáda was also used for a mass gymnastics display,[9] which was held every five years at the Strahov Stadium in Prague, Czechoslovakia.