• Submitted by Natasha Ludlam

  An anecdote told during the Brezhnev era: Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev were all travelling together in a railway carriage, when unexpectedly the train stopped. Stalin put his head out of the window and shouted, "Shoot the driver!" But the train didn't start moving. Khrushchev then shouted, "Rehabilitate the driver!" But it still didn't move. Brezhnev then said, "Comrades, Comrades, let's draw the curtains, turn on the gramophone and let's pretend we're moving!" After Gorbachev came to power another line was added, in which he suggests: "Comrades, let's get out and push."

  [Source: M. McAuley, Soviet Politics, 1917-1991 (1992), pp. 87-8.]

   

• Submitted by Nestor Cerda

  It is the October anniversary march. Old-age pensioner Rabinovich comes out with a placard saying: "We thank Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood." A Chekist and a Party organizer rush up to him and say, "Have you gone mad? What childhood, old man? When you were a kid, Comrade Stalin wasn't even born!". To which Rabinovich replied: "That's exactly what I want to thank him for".

  [Source: D. Volkogonov, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire (1998).]

  
  

• Submitted by Jane Robertson

  A joke current in the USSR during the late 1930s - reprinted in an article on Soviet anecdotal humour in 1957: A flock of sheep were stopped by frontier guards at the Russo-Finnish border. "Why do you wish to leave Russia?" the guards asked them. "It's the NKVD", replied the terrified sheep. "Beria's ordered them to arrest all elephants." "But you aren't elephants!" the guards pointed out. "Try telling that to the NKVD!"

  [Source: D Thomas & M McAndrew, Russia, Soviet Union, 1917-1945: From Tsar to Stalin (1995).]

  
  

• Submitted by George Sprague

  A delegation from his native Georgia leaves Stalin's office after a long meeting. Stalin realizes that he cannot find his pipe and calls Dzerzhinsky to find out if anyone from the delegation took his pipe. After 30 minutes Stalin finds the pipe under the table and calls Dzerzhinsky to let the delegation go. Dzerzhinsky answers Stalin's call: "I am sorry Comrade, but one half of the delegation already admitted that they took your pipe, and the other half died during questioning."

  [Source: By word of mouth.]

  
  

• Submitted by Caroline Thorpe

  A Soviet judge walks out of the courtroom, barely managing to suppress his wild laughter. A colleague asks, "What is it you are laughing about? "Well, I just heard a great joke," the judge says. "A joke? Tell me!" "Are you crazy? I just sentenced a man to five years for that joke!"

  [Source: ?]

  
  

  A Russian and an American die and they both go to hell. Satan asks them, "Which hell do you prefer, the Russian or American?" "What's the difference?" the Russian asks. "In the American hell, you will be forced to eat one bucket of waste every day; in the Russian, two," Satan explains. The American decides to go to the American hell. The Russian, being a patriot, chooses the Russian hell. One year later the two men run into one another. "How's life?" the Russian asks. "Can't complain," the American answers. "I eat one bucket of waste every morning, and then I'm free for the rest of the day. What about you?" "I coudn't be better!" the Russian explains. "Just like back on earth! They're either late with waste deliveries, or they're having bucket shortages."

  [Source: ?]

  
  

• Submitted by Kelly Summers

  What was the nationality of Adam and Eve? Russian, of course. Why else would they think they're in paradise when they were homeless, naked and had just one apple between the two of them?

  [Source: Little Russia in US, Political Anecdotes]

  
  

  A speaker tells his listeners, "The communist ideal is already on the horizon." The audience silently wonders, "What IS a horizon?" Answer: An imaginary line where the sky comes together with the earth; it moves off into the distance when you try to get closer.

  [Source: Little Russia in US, Political Anecdotes]

  
  

• Submitted by Allan Cairns

  At a UN meeting in 1985, an American diplomat, surprised by the change from the old and ill Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko to the young and healthy Gorbachev, asks his Russian counterpart: "So what support does Gorbachev have in the Kremlin?" The Russian replies, "None, he walks unaided."

  [Source: ?]

  
  

• more to come ...
  
  
  

See also Bad news - politics are back on the joke landscape by Jukka Luoma in the Helsingin Sanomat (International Edition, 1 August 2000).

Index

Information Tour