Mikhail Botvinnik won the 1948 championship to begin over two decades of uninterrupted Soviet dominance in world chess, and FIDE assumed control of the title.
Key Facts
- Tournament format
- Quintuple round-robin among five players
- Winner
- Mikhail Botvinnik (Soviet Union)
- Reason held
- Death of champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946
- FIDE founded
- 1924
- Soviet domination duration
- Over 20 years without interruption
By the Numbers
Cause → Event → Consequence
Alexander Alekhine, the reigning World Chess Champion, died in 1946 without a successor being determined through a match. This created a vacancy in the title and necessitated an organized competition. FIDE, the International Chess Federation founded in 1924, stepped in to arrange a tournament to fill the championship.
In 1948, FIDE organized a quintuple round-robin tournament among five elite players to determine the new World Chess Champion. Mikhail Botvinnik of the Soviet Union won the competition, claiming the title in what was the first championship administered directly by FIDE rather than by a reigning champion's terms.
Botvinnik's victory inaugurated more than twenty consecutive years of Soviet dominance in world chess. The event also established FIDE's authority over the World Chess Championship, shifting control of the title from individual champions to an international governing body for the first time in the championship's history.