Hammer & Tickle: The Story of Communism, a Political System ... Cover Art

Hammer & Tickle: The Story of Communism, a Political System Almost Laughed Out of Existence (Hardcover)

By: Ben Lewis (Author)


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Publisher's note

Through the subversive jokes and cartoons used by those under the thumb of Communist regimes, the author shows what the average citizen truly thought about Lenin, Stalin, the Stasi, and even Gorbachev, in a book that captures how an oppressed people found solace in shared humor.

Through the subversive jokes and cartoons used by those under the thumb of Communist regimes, the author shows what the average citizen truly thought about Lenin, Stalin, the Stasi, and even Gorbachev, in a book that captures how an oppressed people found solace in shared humor.

Communist jokes are 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 countries-surrounded by secret police, threatened with arrest, imprisonment and forced labor, a failed economic system, and bombarded with ludicrous propaganda-turned 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 In this poignant and historically revealing book, rare and previously unpublished archive material, including cartoons, caricatures, photographs, and oral transcripts take the reader on a unique journey through the real experience of the Communist era.

Annotation

Did you hear the one about the guy who wrote an entire book about the culture of communist jokes? The first stop on his book tour was Siberia. That guy would be Ben Lewis, who presents a fascinating and funny review of humor from inside the iron curtain, which reveals that the western stereotype of communists as dull, solemn drones could not be further from the truth. Lewis explains that private jokes were a necessary tool to help the populace bear the burdens of poverty and oppression which often came attached to communist rule. The jokes were often used by sympathetic citizens as codes for communicating their discontent and celebrating their endurance under such dire conditions, though telling one to the wrong person could be no laughing matter.



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