It's Only A Joke, Comrade!: Humour, Trust and Everyday Life under Stalin

by Jonathan Waterlow, Jamie C Johnstone (Cover Design)

'A stunningly original study of Stalinist society... Essential reading for anyone interested in how human beings navigate a path through times of extraordinary upheaval, privation and danger' – Daniel Beer In the shadow of the Gulag, Soviet citizens were still cracking jokes. They had to. Drawing on diaries, interviews, memoirs and hundreds of previously secret documents, It’s Only a Joke, Comrade! uncovers how they joked, coped, and struggled to adapt in Stalin’s brave new world. It asks what it really means to live under a How do people make sense of their lives? How do they talk about it? And whom can they trust to do so? Moving beyond ideas of ‘resistance’, ‘doublethink’, ‘speaking Bolshevik’, or Stalin’s Cult of Personality to explain Soviet life, it reveals how ordinary people found their way and even found themselves in a life lived along the fault-lines between rhetoric and reality. 'An extraordinary achievement' – Ronald Grigor Suny 'Re-vitalizes our understanding of Soviet society' – Lynne Viola 'Fascinating ... lively, engaging, and at times very funny' – Catriona Kelly 'The best book on Stalinism I've read in a long time' – S.A. Smith 'One of those rare books that not only has to be read by scholars in the field, but is also accessible to a wide readership. Indeed it is an essential read for anybody who wants to get beyond standard views of the "communist joke" and understand what humour really tells us about life under this extraordinary regime' – David Priestland

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Humor

308 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Vanjr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very well researched book on Humor, under Stalin-specifically in the 1930s. It comes across as the book one would write as the outgrowth of a PhD and I suspect that was the case. I first heard of the book on the "SRB Postcast" by Sean Guillory when the author was interviewed. (The podcast is a great source of Russian culture, history and books by the way). On the continuum of a popular literature at one end (such as a list of Russian Jokes) and full on academic work this sits squarely towards the academic side, but not so much that a non academic such as myself cannot enjoy it. But being a non-academic I kept thinking, "More jokes (anekdoty)".
The discussion of the book, 1984 and the difference form Russian society was enlightening.
It is also a useful book to understand humor, but who may not have an interest in Russian.
I finished this book wondering about the humor in the Kruschchev era, the Brezhnev, nay even the Putin era?

[Stan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balanced, thoughtful and insightful

Waterlow never allows himself to be seduced by lazy assumptions about Stalinist Soviet society, and using humour as his point of departure makes a cogent case for rejecting the 'Winston Smith' model and presents the reactions of Soviet citizens within an entirely human context with resonance for all times and all societies. Albeit whilst emphasizing the peculiar nature of Soviet society.

[Dave Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Come for the jokes, stay for the rest. Stalin, humor, as the author says "life lived along the fault lines between rhetoric and reality"; a great study of an important part of human culture and more in any time or place. This is us.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of the book is excellent, the research put into it is voluminous and the author comes up with several good, big ideas about what it means to have jokes in repressive contexts, - cross-hatching, or the idea of reconciling two realities in one will stick with me for a long time - but he can't quite pull it all together from fragments into a single, coherent, organized narrative.

[Sarah Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting book to read. It dispels the myth of an atomised soviet society, yet also presents humour as a way for humans to cope and navigate difficult circumstances. It gave an intriguing insight into the lives and of soviet contempories, the psychology behind humour as well as the reasons why, in any society, humour seems a commonality. Would definitely recommend!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little repetitive, but interesting thesis and well-written.

[Inês Martins dos Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow-paced and sometimes repetitive, but overall a really cool read and very well-researched. Quite funny, too; made me laugh a few times. Recommended for conversations about the concept of humour.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinarily stimulating and beautifully written book.

[Leonardo Loffeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Bread gone,
Meat gone,
The Five-Years Plan
Is ten years long"

[Ronald J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stalin might have been no laughing matter, but Soviet citizens engaged in humor frequently during the worst years (1928-1941, which is the book’s era of study, wherein citizens still had high hopes of achieving communist utopia and hadn’t become as jaded as they would later on). Why? This books provides many reasons: it eased psychological pain; helped forge trust between contemporaries; helped make sense of their lives during this violent and disruptive decade. Anekdot(y) is roughly equivlavent to joke(s): a short, humorous tale or question followed by a punchline, although the anekdot is more consistently associated with political subject matter. There’s nothing quintessentially Russian about it, since humor in North Korea and the Eastern Bloc countries was and is so similar. Humor isn’t so much counterculture as counterpoint. The author explains anekdot this way:

“Funny and serious are not opposites; serious things can be funny and funny things can be serious. Jokes are stories we tell ourselves about experience of the world. Myths are the images through which we explain the world to ourselves, jokes are their more playful siblings; challenging rather than dictating; questioning rather than answering; exploring rather hiding beneath the covers of accepted wisdom.”


A single joke could get you put in the Gulag for “anti-Soviet agitation, for 10 years or more. The author went into the Soviet archives to track down actual jokes told, and the Harvard Interview Project on the Soviet Social System, conducted in 1950-51, comprising 764 interviews with Soviet refugees (funded by the US Air Force). Some of the jokes:

Posters would be changed by switching out the “t” in Stalin for an “r”, making him Sralin, not the man of steel, but the man of shit.

Stalin summoned economists and told them he wanted to hold a feast for all the people that would last for weeks. He asked how much this would cost, but no one could say. Then one spoke up and said it could be done very cheaply: “Buy a single bullet and shoot yourself—then everyone will celebrate.”

The ghost of Lenis visits Stalin. ‘How’re things?’ he asks. ‘Everything’s fine. The people are with me,’ replies Stalin. ‘If you carry out the Second Five-Year Plan, they will soon be with me,’ Lenin replies.

What’s the absolute longest joke? The Five-Year Plan.


The author doesn’t think political jokes ultimately toppled the Eastern Bloc, as some people allege (see Hammer and Tickle, though the author of that book also doesn't think jokes toppled the regime). Ultimately, I was somewhat disappointed with this book, since it’s too heavy on analysis, and too light on the jokes. Hammer and Tickle contained more jokes. Some of the books he cites might be worth looking into for more jokes.