by Jonathan Rickert
Bad Regimes Yield Good Jokes
Political humor was an important aspect of daily life in communist Eastern Europe – – simultaneously an emotional escape valve and cris de coeur. Anti-regime jokes of various sorts were exchanged cautiously, within families and among trusted friends. Some ridiculed communism itself, others Russia/the Soviet Union, and in many cases the local dictator, whoever he was. Others focused on the shortages, hardships, and other privations of daily life.
Examples of such political humor often appeared, disappeared, and then reappeared in altered form. Many such jokes prevalent in communist Eastern Europe hopped from country to country and were recycled versions of each other, adapted to the circumstances and personalities wherever they circulated. Where any particular witticism originated was impossible to ascertain, and where it would end up, and in what form, were equally unknowable.
Extensive scholarly interest has been paid to such Eastern European humor, including multiple analyses and compendia. The flavor and content of at least some of those works are contained in the title of one such volume, First Prize: Fifteen Years! by C. Banc and A. Dundes. That title is drawn from the following Romanian joke: A competition for the best political joke was announced. Do you know what the first prize was? No. Fifteen years! The joke cleverly encompasses both the risk and “rewards” of indulging in such activity.
During my service at US embassies in Moscow, Bucharest, and Sofia during communist times, the political sections occasionally collected examples of local political humor gleaned from various contacts, including local Foreign Service National (FSN) employees. These were solicited from all sections of the embassy, assembled, and reported to Washington. Although not all of the “humor” was particularly humorous, the jokes almost invariably shed light on the concerns of ordinary citizens – – shortages of food and consumer goods, lack of personal freedoms, dislike of the party and local dictator, etc. The fact that such material had to be shared almost clandestinely was itself an indictment of the ruling regimes.
A Random Smattering
The first “political” joke I recall hearing was in Moscow in 1968. The Soviet Union and most of its Warsaw Pact allies had just entered Czechoslovakia to put an end to the so-called Prague Spring. It seems that after arriving in Prague the Soviets decided to extend “fraternal assistance” to the Czechoslovaks to improve their governmental operations. While examining the existing bureaucratic structures, they discovered that there was a Ministry of the Navy, despite the facts that the country had neither ships nor access to the sea. The Soviet official who unearthed this anomaly reproached his local interlocutor, asking how could it be so? The latter retorted, “Why not? Doesn’t the USSR have a Ministry of Culture?” As I was to learn, this particular joke was a recycled version of one regarding Hungary that circulated after the 1956 revolution there and that an even earlier version, featuring Hitler and Hungary’s Admiral Horthy, existed before World War Two. Who knows where it all began?
And here are a few others:
Romanian President Ceausescu was out for a drive in the countryside when his limo slid into a ditch. All efforts to extricate the car proved unsuccessful. A collective farmer happened by on his tractor and was asked (ordered?) to pull the vehicle out of the ditch, which he accomplished successfully. The grateful dictator offered his rescuer a reward – a new house, a trip abroad, whatever he wanted. The peasant scratched his head thoughtfully and then replied that he would like a nice marble tombstone. What are you saying, Ceausescu asked? You can have anything you want, and you ask for a grave marker. Why? The peasant replied that a tombstone was what he would be needing most once his family and friends found out what he had done to assist the dictator.
A large political rally of thousands of people had gathered (unwillingly) at Bucharest’s Otopeni airport. The Romanian dictator’s wife, the hated Elena, flew over the crowd in a small aircraft, tossing 100 lei notes (the highest denomination that existed at the time) out of a window. One of those accompanying her asked why she was doing so. Elena replied that she was making hundreds of people happy. In the back of the plane another aide muttered “why doesn’t she throw herself out of the window and make 21 million citizens happy?”
A worker at a socialist factory left his workplace every day pushing a wheelbarrow filled with junk and trash. Suspecting that he was stealing something, the guards at the gate diligently searched the detritus in the wheelbarrow but never found any kind of contraband. When the worker eventually retired, the guards approached him, saying that although they were confident that he was stealing something, they didn’t know what it was. He was promised that there would be no legal or other repercussions if he confessed. When asked to reveal what he had been stealing, he responded with one word: wheelbarrows.
And two widely shared old chestnuts about socialism. Question: What is the difference between capitalism and socialism? Answer: Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, but socialism is the exact opposite. And socialism is a system under which we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.
Finally, an earthy Russian story, more a parable than anything else, that fits in with the theme of Eastern European humor and is presented here as related by two-time US ambassador to Moscow, Llewellyn Thompson. An old Russian peasant was going along a road one cold morning when he saw a bird lying on the ground. At first, he thought that it was dead but when he picked it up, he felt a faint little heartbeat. He tried to revive it by blowing on it and then putting it under his sheepskin coat but to no avail. He was about to discard it when he espied a large pancake of fresh manure left by a passing cow. The peasant buried the bird in the manure up to his little beak and then went on his way. After a time, the hot manure did its work, and the bird revived. A wolf heard it singing, pulled it out, and ate it up.
Now that is the end of the story, but as you surely know most Russian stories have a moral. This one in fact has three. The first is that whoever puts you in it is not necessarily your enemy. The second is that whoever takes you out of it is not necessarily your friend. But the most important moral is that if you are up to your neck in it, don’t sing!
Better Regimes are not as Funny
The year 1989 saw dramatic changes throughout the formerly communist world. The Berlin Wall came down, and regime after regime throughout the region toppled. When my family and I arrived back in Bucharest in the summer of 1991 for a second tour, there had been many changes, most of them positive. However, we soon noticed that the political humor that had added spice to our lives in the early 1970s had disappeared completely – political jokes were as rare as publicly displayed Ceausescu portraits, i.e., nowhere to be found. In the new political environment there no longer was a need for the coded language of clandestine political humor. That people could speak freely and criticize their leaders, government, and anything else that displeased them undoubtedly was a good thing. One can only hope that the situation stays that way. And if it doesn’t, there or elsewhere, the state of political humor will be a good indicator.
Retired Senior Foreign Service Officer Jonathan B. Rickert spent over 35 years of his career in London, Moscow, Vienna, Port of Spain, Sofia, and Bucharest (twice), as well as in Washington. His last two overseas assignments were as deputy chief of mission in Bulgaria and Romania. Mr. Rickert holds a B.A. degree in history from Princeton University and an M.A. in international relations from the George Washington University.