Ben Lewis, author of Hammer and Tickle: A Cultural History of Communism, collected hundreds if not thousands of jokes by Russians and Eastern Europeans about the Communist experience. Lewis believes these jokes are unique in that each topic implicitly links back to a general critique of the whole communist system. Here are a few of them:
Who dug the White Sea canal?
The right back was dug by those who told jokes...
And the left bank?
By those who listened.
What is the difference between Stalin and Roosevelt?
Roosevelt collects the jokes that people tell about him, and Stalin collects the people who tell jokes about him.
An old housewive joins a queue: "What are they giving out?"
Person in queue: "A slap in the face."
Old housewife: "To everyone? Or just Stakhanovites?"
Who invented barbed wife?
Lysenko, who crossed a snake with a hedgehog.
Will there be a police force when we have achieved full Communism?
No, by then people will have learned how to arrest themselves.
What is the definition of Capitalism?
The exploitation of man by man.
What is the definition of Communism?
The exact opposite.
Trotsky wakes up in the morning.
"How are you?" an assistant asks.
"I don't know," he says. "I haven't read the papers yet."
What were Mayakovsky's last words before he committed suicide?
"Comrades, don't shoot!"
What's the new sign in Kiev hospitals?
Anyone who has come in for radiation therapy, please go outside.
Do you know why Romania will survive the end of the world?
Because it is fifty years behind everyone else.
What is the difference between a Western fairy tale and a Communist one?
The Western one begins, "Once upon a time there was...", and the Communist one begins, "Once upon a time there will be..."
How will the problem of queues in shops be solved when we reach full Communism?
There will be nothing left to queue for.
What are the most constant problems facing the Soviet economy?
Temporary problems.
What is the difference between life in the time of Jesus and life today?
In those days one man suffered for us all. Today we all suffer for one man.
Showing posts with label Hammer and Tickle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hammer and Tickle. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Comedy of Communism
Soviet Roulette is biased: it is naturally obsessed with those authors who mix personal ruminations with historical or literary observations about the Soviet Union. See, for example, previous posts on The Possessed and Inside the Stalin Archives. One of the best efforts in this strange genre is Ben Lewis' Hammer and Tickle: A Cultural History of Communism. Lewis, who isn't afraid to describe an illuminating relationship with a neo-communist East German girlfriend, believes that humor lies at the heart of the communist experiment. Lewis' book (which expands on a movie on the same subject) is an open-ended investigation to decades of communist jokes, which were used both to ridicule socialist states as well as their alleged enemies, including capitalists, Western powers, and even foot-dragging apparatchiks.
Lewis doesn't provide readers with any easy answers about the meaning of communist humor. He tracks jokes by topic, regime, era, purpose, and venue. He contrasts competing historical and cultural theories related to the impact of jokes on despotic regimes. Did the ubiquitous jokes undermine the regimes they denigrated or serve them by replacing more meaningful, action-oriented forms of political protest? Lewis offers no simple solution, although he does admit that people seem to have put away humor when they finally took to the streets in the late 1980s to bring down communist rule once and for all.
If Lewis doesn't advance a single thesis about communist humor, he does help to show how his approach to understanding the logic of communism is indispensable. Humor is at the heart of many different facets of the European experience of communism. People told jokes about almost every facet of communist existence, including shortages, shoddy goods, the cult of Lenin, stupid or corrupt leaders, sham elections, police surveillance, and capitalist economic supremacy. Stalin told jokes about his enemies. Communist periodicals derided the state's perceived enemies.
Lewis quotes historian Steven Cohen by saying something to the effect that communism was only serious for about five minutes, but has been funny ever since. If this tongue-in-cheek formulation underrates the tragedy of the gulags, purges, and collectivisation famines, it does point to the essential absurdity that always lay at the heart of communist social and economic theory. By the 1960s, Eastern Europeans understood that in many ways their society was a parody of the Western one. Their economy produced things that nobody needed; hard work had almost no relationship to economic reward; and the continued viability of most Eastern European nations was contingent upon the generosity of the Western ones, who routinely gave out large, sub-market loans.
There is a flawed Woody Allen film entitled, Melinda, Melinda, that unconsciously follows Marx's famous dictum about the nature of history. In this tale, Allen makes the point that the same story can be told in two different but equally satisfying ways; either as tragedy or farce. Although it's sometimes hard to credit--see my previous post on film, The Trotsky--looking at communism as comedy somehow seems worthwhile and long overdue.
Lewis doesn't provide readers with any easy answers about the meaning of communist humor. He tracks jokes by topic, regime, era, purpose, and venue. He contrasts competing historical and cultural theories related to the impact of jokes on despotic regimes. Did the ubiquitous jokes undermine the regimes they denigrated or serve them by replacing more meaningful, action-oriented forms of political protest? Lewis offers no simple solution, although he does admit that people seem to have put away humor when they finally took to the streets in the late 1980s to bring down communist rule once and for all.
If Lewis doesn't advance a single thesis about communist humor, he does help to show how his approach to understanding the logic of communism is indispensable. Humor is at the heart of many different facets of the European experience of communism. People told jokes about almost every facet of communist existence, including shortages, shoddy goods, the cult of Lenin, stupid or corrupt leaders, sham elections, police surveillance, and capitalist economic supremacy. Stalin told jokes about his enemies. Communist periodicals derided the state's perceived enemies.
Lewis quotes historian Steven Cohen by saying something to the effect that communism was only serious for about five minutes, but has been funny ever since. If this tongue-in-cheek formulation underrates the tragedy of the gulags, purges, and collectivisation famines, it does point to the essential absurdity that always lay at the heart of communist social and economic theory. By the 1960s, Eastern Europeans understood that in many ways their society was a parody of the Western one. Their economy produced things that nobody needed; hard work had almost no relationship to economic reward; and the continued viability of most Eastern European nations was contingent upon the generosity of the Western ones, who routinely gave out large, sub-market loans.
There is a flawed Woody Allen film entitled, Melinda, Melinda, that unconsciously follows Marx's famous dictum about the nature of history. In this tale, Allen makes the point that the same story can be told in two different but equally satisfying ways; either as tragedy or farce. Although it's sometimes hard to credit--see my previous post on film, The Trotsky--looking at communism as comedy somehow seems worthwhile and long overdue.
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