Hammer and Tickle: book explores subversive Soviet jokes
Link, Link to Hammer and Tickle on Amazon (via 3 Quarks Daily)For some commentators in the 1980s, the existence of this type of humour in the communist world took on a profound significance. It demonstrated the indomitable nature of the human spirit under oppression; the fact that communism produced such a huge quantity of jokes showed how hugely oppressive it was; and the stubborn persistence of this humour played a major role in undermining Soviet rule. In the end, they said, communism was laughed out of existence. advertisement
Ben Lewis, a television documentary producer with a good knowledge of Russian and German and an inquisitive but sceptical mind, has set out to test these claims.
He has travelled through the former Soviet bloc, collecting jokes, inspecting police records and interviewing cartoonists, dissidents, politicians and diehard communists. The result is a fascinating book which, while written in a resolutely non-academic style (we learn perhaps a little too much about his bedroom conversations with his East German girlfriend), engages with the existing theories and argues that most of them are wrong. In the process, it also manages to tell a lot of jokes.
Did communism generate an unprecedented amount of humour? Lewis studies the available evidence about humour under Nazism, and concludes that communism certainly did better...
'What is the difference between communism and capitalism?' 'Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man; communism is the exact opposite.'
'Capitalism stands on the brink of the abyss. It will soon be overtaken by communism.'
'Is it true that Marxism-Leninism is scientific?' 'No, surely not. If it were, they would have tested it on animals first.'
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I have a book called "Russia Dies Laughing". It's got some decent jokes, but the main interesting thing about it is that it's essentially a transcription of a tape of one night that a bunch of Soviet ex-pats sat around a table for hours and told jokes.
The introduction suggests that, when all you have is humour, it flourishes.
The book begins with the old story about Kennedy and Khrushchev meeting at a summit. They get to talking about the burdens of leadership, and jokes about leaders, and Kennedy mentions that he collects jokes about himself.
"How about you?" Kennedy asks.
"Oh yes," says Khrushchev.
"How many do you have?" asks Kennedy.
Khrushchev replies "Three camps full."
I don't get it.
Check out the Comment Central Communist Joke Competition here:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/06/great-item-on-t.html
I guess this means my children will have a much better sense of humor.
Allegedly genuine Chinese Deng/Mao joke. A friend of mine claimed to have heard this while doing his PhD fieldwork in a tractor gearbox factory in rural Henan. I'm somewhat sceptical of its provenance, but just in case, here it is:
Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong are flying... somewhere when their plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors, they pull themselves from the wreckage, but are immediately captured by the native people. (This, supposedly, is an often-used formula.)
They are told that they have trespassed upon ancestral ground, for which the penalty is death, but that they can earn their lives and freedom by completing a task for the chief. "Go," he says, "into the jungle, and retrieve for me twelve pieces of fruit, each like the others." Assured by their captors of the futility of attempted escape, Deng and Mao are released into the jungle. They agree to split up. Deng wanders for a while, before finding a bunch of grapes hanging from a vine. He picks a dozen, and heads back to the village.
"Now, outsider, you must insert each of these pieces of fruit into your anus, without letting a sound issue forth from your mouth. When the twelfth piece is hidden from the light of day, you will be free to go."
Biting his lip, Deng sets about this. Just as the twelfth and final grape is about to disappear, however, he suddenly starts screaming and weeping with laughter. The tribesmen are livid, and immediately sentence him to a painful death.
"But why," asks the chief, "why did you laugh so when you were so close to success?"
"Look over there!" Deng replies, "Mao-tongzhi is coming down the beach carrying a dozen pineapples."
Billy Wilder's 'One, Two, Three' is one of the funniest movies ever, and it's chock full of communist jokes. I believe it.
It's interesting that in the article he tries to compare humor under the Nazis with humor under the Soviets. I don't think it's a fair comparison to make, and not for the politics of the two groups; so much of Russian humor is self deprecating, and I think it has more to do with the Russian psyche than with politics. Long winters, poor food, invasions from east and west, bad governance under both the Soviets and Czars-- Russians were always just resigned to living this glum life, and dealt with it through drinking and humor.
Apparently they are now being directed towards Putin (and we'll see how he deals with it).
Stalin's ghost appears to Putin in a dream, and Putin asks for his help running the country. Stalin says, "Round up and shoot all the democrats, and then paint the inside of the Kremlin blue." "Why blue?" Putin asks. "Ha!" says Stalin. "I knew you wouldn't ask me about the first part."
The Czechs had some great ones, especially revolving around their currency design. :-)
My favorite has always been: In Pravda there is no izvestiya, and in Izvestiya there is no pravda.
("Pravda" means "truth", "izvestiya" means "news", and both were the names of newspapers published by the Soviet government.)
A Soviet citizen is caught painting the phrase "Brezhnev is an idiot" on a Moscow wall. He's sentenced to 21 years in prison -- one year for insulting the head of state, and twenty for revealing state secrets.
One day, Stalin is unable to find his favorite pipe. He calls Lavrenti Beria, chief of the secret police, to have him find it. A few hours later, Stalin finds the pipe in a drawer of his desk. He calls Beria to cancel the search. "But Comrade Stalin," Beria replies, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it!"
A Russian party-official arrives late at night to his hotel (in Russia). He is not surprised to find that his reservation has been mislaid but he is more than a little peeved that his status in the party isn't enough to get him a good room anyway. However, the clerk insists, the only bed they have left is the fourth bunk in a 4-bed dorm--he'll have to make do with that. The Russian grumbles but eventually he picks up his suitcase and heads for the dorm. On his way, he meets a chamber-maid and thinking he might as well try to make friends with his room-mates, he asks her to bring them four cups of tea.
As he enters the dorm, he finds that the other three guests are Polish, they are having a fairly wild party and they're very drunk. They also ignore him totally from the moment he enters. After sitting there for several minutes, he realizes he can't stand them anymore and decides to pull a joke on them. He stands up, grasps a floor lamp and speaking into the light-bulb as if it were a microphone he says:
"Comrade Colonel, we would like four cups of tea to our room immediately!" The Poles stare at him in disbelief, which turns to horror as the chamber-maid knocks on the door and delivers the tea a few minutes later. In about 30 seconds the Poles have all packed their bags and fled the hotel. Our Russian gets the entire room to himself. He sleeps very soundly.
The next morning, however, as he's checking out and is about to leave, the desk-clerk calls after him:
"By the way, Sir, the Comrade Colonel said to tell you he appreciated your little joke last night!"
From http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/89q2/polcol.453.html
oh, the memories!
"-can communism be build in switzerland?"
"-yes, but why? pity, such a nice country, let's try it on albania first"
"-what's the best job security position in the world?
"-looking ahead for the incoming victory of communism"
"-how to unite time and space?"
"-dig this trench from this fence and until lunch time"
and my favorite:
an inspection from the center is driving on a provincial road, and see two guys on the roadside, one digging holes, and another filling them up with dirt. the inspectors stop and ask what's going on. "we are the tree planters", answers the first worker. "the guy who plants the trees in the holes is on sick leave today".
This is an old favorite, that reappears with different variations:
Q: Is it true that a Comrade Likachev in Minsk won a free automobile?
A: Yes, however it was not in Minsk but Kiev, his name is Kostoglotov not Likachev, it was a bicycle, not an auto, and he did not win it, it was stolen.
Q: How many Marxists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. The bulb contains the seed of it's own revolution.