When politics is a laughing matter

Policy Review

Volumn , Issue 110, 2001, Pages 59-69

  Rose, Alexander ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0039783917     PISSN: 01465945     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (4)

1. On a serious note, regarding Stalin's "Life Has Become Better" slogan, an NKVD agent was present at a 1937 factory discussion centering on the new Soviet constitution. He reported: "When discussion turned to the fact that life has become better, life has become more cheerful, [one worker] threw the brochure of the draft constitution on the floor and began to trample it with his feet, shouting: 'To hell with your constitution, it has given me nothing. . . . I am going hungry. . . . My whole family is going hungry. . . . I have begun to live worse. . . . It was better before." Such outbursts, often sparked by drunkenness, were common. Quoted in Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism.
2. On these matters, see J. Sanders, "The Seriousness of Humor: Political Satire in the Soviet Bloc," East Europe, XI (1962), No. 1, pp. 22-29, and No. 2, pp. 23-27.
3. On these matters, see J. Sanders, "The Seriousness of Humor: Political Satire in the Soviet Bloc," East Europe, XI (1962), No. 1, pp. 22-29, and No. 2, pp. 23-27.
4. See F.K.M. Hillenbrand's eclectic collection of jokes and anecdotes, Underground Humor in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (London: Routledge, 1995).