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August 08, 2004

Soviet era jokes

Bought a wee book in Estonia that had a collection of jokes that were common throughout the USSR during Communism. People were censored so heavily that these were often the only way they could express a bit of their true feelings. Here are a few that I thought were brilliant (NB I copied them as is, grammatical mistakes are not being mine!):
Q: It is constantly being said that the communism is on the horizon. What is this communism?
A: Communism is a society free from exploitation, our happy future where nobody lives in want.
Q: But what is a horizon?
A: A horizon is an imaginary line that keeps moving further away as we get closer. (1979)

"The phone is ringing in the Kremlin. It's a long distance call and someone wants to talk to Leonid Ilyich. The person is being told that unfortunately Brezhnev is dead. Soon the phone rings again and somebody wants to talk to Brezhnev once more. "Look here! Didn't you understand or hear - he's dead". "I did understand, but it's so good to hear it". (1982)

"Stalin visited a prison once. The prisoners are line up and Stalin greets:
"Greetings, comrades criminal offenders!"
Prisoners reply: "Greetings our great leader and teacher". (1981)

"Lenin died and went to heaven. St Peter lets him in and grants him 2 wishes. Lenin says he would like all people on earth to be wise, honest and communists. Peter objects "i can only grant you 2 wishes". Lenin starts thinking:
-When a man is honest and a communist, he isnt wise
- When a man is wise and a communist, he isnt honest
- But if a man is honest and wise, he isn't a communist". (1981)

You still see massive statues of Lenin in the main square of every city, streets named after Lenin and Karl Marz and the hammer and sickle carved into massive buildings and monuments, but all other references to the Soviet era are to be found only in museums. People dont really like to talk about it much, understandably, I I feel too nosy and "western" if I ask too much. So I'm just sitting back and observing. It gets difficult when I am asked to compare Russian and Australian people, their character though. History doesnt just stop in the past.

Posted by Nik Philps on August 8, 2004 02:19 PM
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Comments

Hi Nik, I remember there was a lot of jokes about the propaganda from Radio Yerevan here in Slovakia. Estonians used the same one?

Posted by: brano on August 10, 2004 04:39 PM
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