Q: Why, despite all the shortages, was the toilet paper in East Germany always 2-ply? A: Because they had to send a copy of everything they did to Moscow. Communist jokes are the strangest, funniest, most enchanting and meaningful legacy of the 80 years of political experimentation in Russia and Eastern Europe, known as Communism. The valiant and sardonic citizens of the former Communist countries - surrounded by an invisible network of secret police, threatened with arrest, imprisonment and forced labour, confronted by an economic system that left shops empty, and bombarded with ludicrous state propaganda - turned joke-telling into an art form. They used jokes as a coded way of speaking the truth. 'Hammer and Tickle' takes us on a unique journey through the Communist era (1917-1989), and tells its real history through subversive jokes and joke-tellers, many of whom ended up in the gulags. It is also illustrated with a combination of rare and previously unpublished archive material, political cartoons, caricatures, photographs and state-sponsored propaganda. Humorous, culturally poignant and historically revealing, this is the story of a political system that was (almost) laughed out of existence.
Hammer And Tickle
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Editorial Reviews
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'marvellously original... a fine tribute to the joyous, humane anarchy of laughter, whose nearest political analgoue is that ramshackle, chaotic system of political wishful thinking called democracy.' And their favourite joke? 'What stage comes between socialism and communism? Alcoholism.' -- CHRISTOPHER HART SUNDAY TIMES "entertaining and thoughtful study." -- GEORGE WALDEN EVENING STANDARD "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" SUNDAY TELEGRAPH "wonderful... this isn't just a joke book. Instead, Lewis embarks on a deeply scholarly examination and analysis of the communist joke... an excellent job." -- MARTIN ROWSON NEW STATESMAN "an excellent anthology of anecdotes knowledgeably linked into the history of the Soviet period... very enjoyable to read" -- ELAINE FEINSTEIN DAILY TELEGRAPH "This book gives a good flavour of that socialist-era humour." MORNING STAR "explores the wealth of subversive humour during the long, bleak decades of communism." IRISH INDEPENDENT "Ben Lewis's grimly entertaining study is no mere joke compendium." -- GEORGE WALDEN THE SCOTSMAN "charming, highly original, elegantly written and valuable piece of cultural history... This is very funny book. Like the best Communist jokes, it is funniest when it is grimmest." -- Victor Sebestyen THE SPECTATOR "a fascinating attempt to get to grips with communism's rise and fall in Europe through its funny bone... their cultural significance shouldn't be underestimated." METRO - LONDON, LEEDS, NORTH EAST, N WEST,MIDLANDS
About the Author
Ben Lewis' award-winning film HAMMER AND TICKLE was broadcast on BBC4 in 2006. His article on Communist jokes for PROSPECT magazine, received the greatest number of hits on their website for any article last year.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Get it for the jokes, not for author's nonsense,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Hammer and Tickle (Paperback)
Ben Lewis merely poached communist jokes from several Eastern European countries and filled the rest of the space with the following:1) some historical background (acceptable) 2) his own half-baked theories and clumsy interviews (enough said) 3) relationship issues with his girlfriend (?) I am not sorry I bought the book because of the jokes, which there are plenty in the book. It is a pitty that such a worthy subject did not get an author it deserves.
4.0 out of 5 stars
What is it? A humor anthology, a romance, a history, or a philosophy?,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Hammer And Tickle (Kindle Edition)
Like other reviewers, I bought this volume looking for an anthology of communist jokes. Instead, it is a history of humor in the communist world, or perhaps a history of communism seen through the prism of its humor.Other reviewers have noted that the book weaves together several rather incongruous threads. There is a history of the author's romance with a woman from the former East Germany, juxtaposing her unrepentant affection for communism, flaws and all, with his humorous, or perhaps cynical irreverence about everything in general and communism in particular. Then there is a history of the Soviet Union and of communism, played out in interviews with the likes of Lech Walesa. There is a history of official humor as a propaganda vehicle, and finally, the stuff we were looking for, the underground jokes that poked fun at communism. An author should begin a book with a notion of who his readership might be. Lewis'book lacks that focus. He has parts for people who are just looking for jokes, historians and philosophers. Assessing each thread separately, I would say that he doesn't do a bad job with any of them. But just as you would not buy a single book to teach you how to cook and drywall, neither would I expect many people will be interested in the full range of Lewis' interests. The book does have its bright points. First, he has edited the jokes fairly well. In any anthology of 1000 jokes the reader starts to gag after about 50 of them, wondering where the good ones are. In this book the jokes are sparse enough that when you come across one, you generally laugh. The strength of the joke is in the telling. Like any author, Lewis has taken liberties to structure the jokes optimally. Lewis wrote his own amalgam of communist humor, 'A Day in the Life of Ivan Zimpsonovich,' featuring Elizaveta and Bartski. A typical joke: `Supper-time,' Mrs Zimpsonovich calls from the kitchen. 'Sausage soup,' she lies. She serves Bartski takes a spoonful of soup, but before he puts it in his mouth, he sees something black and rubbery on his spoon. Yuck, look, Mum,' he says, "there's a piece of tyre in my soup!' `Eat it, Bartski,' says his father. This is another achievement of Socialism. Barely fifty-five years since the Revolution, and already we have almost completely replaced the horse with the automobile.' Lewis' history of communism hits all of the major phases of development in the Soviet Union, and also illustrates the uniqueness of the interpretations of communism in several of the satellites, especially East Germany, Romania, Hungary and Poland. He captures Joseph Stalin's own grim sense of humor, his paranoid ability to liquidate large numbers of the people around him and joke with them about it at the same time. Perhaps the best measure of a book is whether or not you have the stomach to finish it. This one on my Kindle for four days before I got to the last chapter, but I did get all the way through it and I'm glad that I did.
8 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too much hammer, too little tickle,
By
This review is from: Hammer and Tickle (Hardcover)
Stephen Leacock's verdict that "humour may be defined as the kindly contemplation of incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof" should be kept in mind when reading this book.If humour could destroy an political ideology, as Lewis thinks, it would have destroyed Reagan's "voodoo economics" long before he was elected. Instead, humour strengthened Reagan, because he knew how to use it to counter his critics. Sadly, Lewis and the communists didn't realize the essence of humour is human kindness, and thus it is a safety valve of society. It's why a George Bush (or a Bill Clinton if you prefer) survives; people laugh away their frustrations during the late night shows and then forget the incongruities of politics by the dawn of a new day. Sadly, the Soviets used vodka as their safety valve. Under the Soviets, humour was a person-to-person effort; had it been on radio every night, communists might still be in power. Will Rogers was a classic American political humourist; and, he generally strengthened the American politics. Humour releases tension; censorship allows it to build up until it explodes. That said, this book is an amusing collection of basic humour from the dissidents of authoritarian power. Like a single drop of rain, the humour may be perfect even though ineffective; bottled up, it can erupt with the power of a desert flood. The weakness of this book, as other commentators attest, is its pretentious seriousness. It's great strength is its authentic dissident humour from inside authoritarian regimes. Had Lewis understood humour, he'd realize much of the same humour can equally apply to Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama. Humour is not ideological; it is always subversive. It's a safety valve, not a pressure cooker. It's a mirror, not a shield or club. It's harmless when allowed to run free, as it does on every late night show; it's deadly when it becomes secrets shared only and quietly among friends. Has anyone heard a good joke praising George Bush? Lewis is on the track of a great story. Perhaps, in a later book and if he develops a sense of humour, he'll realize the universal nature of humour. Communist theology was based on suppressing many basic human attitudes; it failed because it could not control human nature and the tendency to laugh at one's foibles. It's a gem of a book, for the jokes it includes; but, it's mediocre in understanding the impact of suppressing such otherwise harmless laughter.
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