I’ve always had a special place in whatever parts of my brain find things funny for communist jokes. (Well, I couldn’t say heart, could I?) About a month ago, I ran across a review of Ben Lewis’s Hammer & Tickle: The History of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes and had our Interlibrary Loan department find me a copy to read. In this book, Lewis attempts to argue that communist jokes had a role in the end of Communism. This book is not written like the typical non-fiction-work-with-a-point-to-make. Rather, it’s more like a memoir of Lewis’s attempts to find the origin of the jokes, how many people were arrested and punished for telling jokes, and, ultimately, if those jokes had anything to do with the events of 1988-1991.
Let me say straight off that I don’t buy Lewis’s argument. Like Christie Davies, one of the scholars Lewis interviewed, I agree that:
The effect – the consequences – of jokes are so small in comparison with other social forces that you might as well forget them. The jokes are a thermometer; they’re not a thermostat. (224)
Throughout the book, Lewis refers to the minimalist and maximalist arguments of jokes. On the one hand, the minimalists say that jokes are a way for people to vent their frustrations and nothing more. One the other hand, maximalists like George Orwell, think that “Every joke is a tiny revolution” (19). Sure, telling jokes is subversive, and if the wrong person heard you telling communist jokes in the wrong country at the wrong time, you could be arrested and sentenced to prison. However, as Lewis goes on, he finds evidence that fewer and fewer people were getting into trouble for telling jokes and that by the 1970s, fewer and fewer new jokes were being made. He is also told time and again by other scholars and by people who lived in former Communist countries, that the jokes were just a way for people to vent their frustrations, no more.
Despite his discouragement, Lewis soldiers on and decides that the fall of Communist came about because of 1) the standard of living, 2) the frustrations of the populace, and 3) because after 1968, the Soviet Union and other governments were reluctant to shoot protesters. After the Solidarity Movement got started in Poland in the early 1980s, other mass movements started. After that, it was just a matter of time. In spite of this, I still sometimes repeat the joke that once the White Album made it over the wall, it was just a matter of time.
Plus, the extended jokes about the “Zimpsonoviches” just sounds like so much bullshit, in spite of Lewis’s claims about its veracity.
One of the things that made this book (and consequently) Lewis’s argument hard to buy was the way that he presents himself in this memoir/history. In the latter third of the book, Lewis recounts a number of interviews that he has with other humor scholars, former and die-hard Communists, and, remarkably, Lech Wałęsa himself. In his rush to prove his points and show off his knowledge of communist jokes, Lewis mostly manages to piss people off. He comes across as an obnoxious know-it-all. While I know full well that Communism was a pipe dream, I can still respect the beliefs of Socialists and Communists. Lewis just mocks them.
What I liked most about the book was the jokes themselves. With a little knowledge of history, many of them are still very funny. Lewis is very good also in places were he is recounting parts of Hungarian, East German, Romanian, and Soviet history. At any rate, here are some of my favorite jokes from the collection:
You remember the police investigator who asks the accused: “What were you doing five years ago on 23 October at 17:15?” The accused replies promptly: “I remember exactly. I had one eye on my clock and the other on my calendar.” (15) What is colder in Romania than the cold water? The hot water. (3)
And my very favorite:
After the October Revolution, God sends three observers to Russia: St. Luke, St. George, and St. Peter. They send him three telegrams. I’ve fallen into the hands of the Cheka–St. Luke. I’ve fallen into the hands of the Cheka–St. George. All’s well. Doing Find. Cheka Superintendent Petrov. (25)