Several years before the collapse of the socialist camp, the next Summer Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles. The previous Olympics was marked by a boycott of the Games by a number of countries. The reasons for refusing to participate in the Olympic Games were political motives, in particular, the aggravation of relations between NATO and the Soviet Union. In 1984, the socialist-oriented countries responded with a similar step, boycotting the Olympics on the American continent.
The 1984 Olympic Games were ignored by almost all the countries of the socialist bloc, with the exception of the PRC, Yugoslavia and Romania. Romanian athletes, however, received permission from their country to come to Los Angeles only privately, although Romania formally joined the protest action.
The formal reason for the boycott was the refusal of the Olympic organizing committee to provide the necessary security guarantees to the participants from the Warsaw Pact countries and the USSR. But the real reason, of course, was the boycott by many capitalist states of the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow. In addition, in a similar way, the countries of the socialist camp responded to the so-called "Carter Doctrine", which provided for military assistance to anti-Soviet insurgents in Afghanistan.
In October 1983, the Soviet sports delegation revealed many flaws on the part of the American organizers of the Games, after which the leadership of the USSR expressed concern about this state of affairs. In particular, the US government did not provide written guarantees of their safety to athletes from socialist countries. The delegations were not allowed to fly to the Olympics by Aeroflot aircraft, and the Soviet Union's floating base, the Georgia motor ship, was denied entry to the American port.
In the spring of 1984, a Politburo resolution appeared, which indicated the inexpediency of the participation of Soviet athletes in the 1984 Games. The document contained a number of measures aimed at creating a favorable public opinion in the world. It was also supposed to transfer all responsibility for the disruption of the Olympics to the United States. The fraternal states were urged to join the boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics.
The countries of the socialist camp announced the holding of the international competition "Friendship-84", in which athletes from nine socialist countries and athletes from more than 40 other countries took part. Moreover, some participants in alternative competitions participated in the Los Angeles Olympics. At the Druzhba-84 competition, several dozen world records were set in a variety of sports.
After two successive boycotts of the Olympic Games, sanctions were introduced into the charter of the International Olympic Committee for organizing a boycott of the Olympics, up to the disqualification of national teams or the expulsion of the country from the IOC.
