Russian Political Jokes - Soviet Union - Communism

Communism

According to Marxist-Leninist theory, communism in the strict sense is the final stage of a society's evolution after passing through the socialism stage. The Soviet Union thus cast itself as a socialist country trying to build communism, the classless society.

  • The principle of socialist economy of the period of transition to communism: the authorities pretend they are paying wages, workers pretend they are working. Alternately, "So long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work." This joke persisted essentially unchanged through the 1980s.

Satirical verses and parodies made fun of official Soviet propaganda slogans.

  • "Lenin died, but his cause lives on!" (an actual slogan)
Punch line variant #1: Rabinovich notes: "I would prefer it the other way round."
Variant #2: What a coincidence: "Brezhnev died, but his body lives on."
(extra comedic effect in the latter case is achieved by the fact that the words cause (delo) and body (telo) rhyme in Russian.
  • Lenin coined a slogan on how to achieve the state of communism through rule by the Communist Party and modernization of the Russian industry and agriculture: "Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country!" The slogan was subject to popular mathematical scrutiny: "Consequently, Soviet power is communism minus electrification, and electrification is communism minus Soviet power."
  • A chastushka ridiculing the tendency to praise the Party left and right:
The winter's passed,
The summer's here.
For this we thank
Our party dear!

Russian:

Прошла зима,
настало лето.
Спасибо партии
за это!

(Proshla zima, nastalo leto / Spasibo partii za eto!)

  • One old bolshevik says to another: "No my friend, we will not live long enough to see communism, but our children... poor children." (An allusion to the slogan "Our children will live in Communism!")

Some jokes allude to notions long forgotten. Survived, they are still funny, but may look strange.

  • Q: Will there be KGB in communism?
A: As you know, in communism, the state will be abolished, together with its means of suppression. People will know how to self-arrest themselves.
The original version was about Cheka. To fully appreciate this joke, a person must know that during the Cheka times, in addition to standard taxation of peasants, they were often forced to perform samooblozhenie ("self-taxation") — after delivering a regular amount of agricultural products, prosperous peasants, especially those declared to be kulaks were expected to "voluntarily" deliver the same amount again; sometimes even "double samooblozhenie" was applied.
  • Collective farm
Q: How do you deal with mice in the Kremlin?
A: Put up a sign saying "collective farm". Then half the mice will starve and the others will run away.

This joke is an allusion to the consequences of the collectivization policy pursued by Joseph Stalin between 1928 and 1933.

Read more about this topic:  Russian Political Jokes, Soviet Union

Famous quotes containing the word communism:

    Let’s not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky.
    Boris Yeltsin (b. 1931)

    Today’s Communism can survive only if it abandons the myth of an infallible party, if it continues to think, and if it becomes democratic.
    Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)

    Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak.
    Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865)