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A new arrival to Gulag is asked: "What were you given 10 years for?" – "For nothing!" – "Don't lie to us here, now! Everybody knows 'for nothing' is 3 years."
by hprotagonist 5y ago
A new arrival to Gulag is asked: "What were you given 10 years for?" – "For nothing!" – "Don't lie to us here, now! Everybody knows 'for nothing' is 3 years."
- aivisol 5y ago"I am American, I live in a free country: I can go to a main square and call president (Reagan/Nixon/whatever) an idiot and nothing will happen to me!" - "Well, I am Soviet citizen, I also live in a free country: I can go to a main square and call president (Reagan/Nixon/whatever) an idiot and nothing will happen to me!"
- hunterb123 5y agoI loved when Reagan told Soviet jokes, that was one of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3z3eSVG7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3z3eSVG7A The YT comment section actually has a few gems too.
- mhh__ 5y agoI always get that video recommended underneath footage of atomic bombs going off or movies like threads. Fitting, because the Reagan administration didn't realize at the time that they were accidently convincing the increasingly old men leading the USSR that the US was preparing a first strike on the evil empire.
- mc32 5y agoHeh. The one where he has two Russians arguing and one asked whether the SU was at the pinnacle of communism and his buddy’s answer was hell no, things are gonna get a lot worse!
- ch4s3 5y agoI literally laughed out loud when I hit that line in Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn was brilliant.
- tgv 5y agoHow does every Russian joke begin? By looking over your shoulder.
- gre 5y ago
- ch4s3 5y agoI don't read Russian, so I can't comment on that article. I don't find the anti-semitism charge very credible, he speaks out against anti-semitism very strongly in both the Gulag Archipelago, and several essays. He also claimed that an anti-semitic essay attributed to him was a hatched job by the KGB, which seems at least possible. I also stand by my claim that he was a brilliant writer. I think if you try to take everything in his descriptions of the Gulag system as literal fact, you'll find historical discrepancies, but his work isn't meant to be wholly historic, but rather more expansive.
- polskado 5y agoIt’s not credible, and anyone who has read more Solzhenitsyn than a summary of Two Hundred Years Together knows that. When he published it he spoke of Jewish friends praising Russian silence on the history he covered. This is kind of the same thing. There is a really unfortunate tendency by certain groups to equivocate criticism of historical Jewish actions with criticism of the Jewish people, and the word antisemitic has lost almost all meaning as a result. Reaction to that book is far from the sole example. It is possible to criticize the behavior of certain historical Jews without filling your heart with hate for an entire people and preaching Hitler’s ideologies. That is a nuance that is lost by Jewish people who call others “antisemitic” at the first hint of criticism. That said, however, it is also somewhat fair because the Jewish people have endured unspeakable horrors in a blink of history.
- ch4s3 5y agoI've read The Gulag Archipelago and some essays, but not Two Hundred Years Togethers so I can't comment on that work. I generally get the sense from his work that I have read that he harbored no ill will towards anyone based on ethnic or Religious identity.
- k0k0r0 5y agoPutin sitting alone in some room. On the door: (Knock knock) Putin: "Who's there?" From outside: "Kyiv" Putin: "I don't get it." From outside: "That's right. You won't."