Hammer and Tickle A Cultural History of Communism [Paperback]

Communist humor is the strangest, funniest, most enchanting and meaningful legacy of the eighty years of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe. The valiant and sardonic citizens of the former Communist countriessurrounded by secret police, threatened with arrest, imprisonment and forced labor, a failed economic system, and bombarded with ludicrous propagandaturned joke-telling into an art form, using them as a coded way of speaking the truth and coping with the absurdity of the system. In this poignant and historically revealing book, rare and previously unpublished archival material, including cartoons, caricatures, photographs, and oral transcripts take the reader on a unique journey through the real experience of the Communist era.We find at long last the jokes only communism could produce. And while they may not have brought it down, they can still tell us something important about why it fell.Charming, highly original, elegantly written and valuable piece of cultural history. This is a very funny book. Like the best Communist jokes, it is funniest when it is grimmest.Marvelously original. A fine tribute to the joyous, humane anarchy of laughter, whose nearest political analogue is that ramshackle, chaotic system of political wishful thinking called democracy.A daringly fresh look at the history of communism.