7 ms·

Hammer and Tickle (2006)

49 points by homarp 4y ago

computator 4y ago
One more classic story in the same category of humour: Some poor downtrodden men in Leningrad during the height of the Cold War have been hearing about all the wonderful jobs, weather, and food in Siberia. They are eager to move there but they are wary that it might be a trick, and that once there they won’t be allowed to leave. They agree that one of them should go first and write a letter concealing a secret message back to his comrades in Leningrad. If the letter is written in black ink, then life in Siberia is excellent and the others should come. But if it’s written in red ink, then what they’ve been told is all lies. Soon they get a letter from the comrade who volunteered to be the first to go to Siberia. It’s in black ink. They eagerly read his glowing report about life in Siberia, the good jobs, comfortable weather, and bountiful food. Their friend finishes his letter by mentioning that there’s just one thing he hasn’t been able to find: red ink.
- cafard 4y ago
  A story heard years ago by an acquaintance, of Armenian descent: After WW II, the Soviet Union urged former residents to return. One family member, with wife and children decided to take them up on the offer. He did not really believe that he could write candidly about conditions, and so they agreed that he should send a picture. If he was standing up, things were well, and the rest of the family should consider returning. If he was sitting down, things were no good, and the rest of the family should remain where they were. When they received the picture, he was lying down.
homarp 4y ago
>[article author] also came across a wonderfully overwritten PhD thesis by the Stanford anthropologist Seth Benedict Graham: A Cultural Analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot (anekdot is the Russian word for a political joke). https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/9560/1/grahamsethb_etd2003.pdf https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/9560/1/grahamsethb_etd2003.pd...
- gukov 4y ago
  An anekdot doesn't have to be political. Actually, most of the time it isn't.
thriftwy 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes has lots of examples.
- mjklin 4y ago
  Honorable mention to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_jokes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_jokes
VictorPath 4y ago
> Why such a long queue?”...“Well,” sighs Marx, “Sometimes we’re out of oil, sometimes we don’t have I've been immersed in shortages for the past two years (try to go buy a car for MSRP), why some UK paper is writing about some far away, long ago shortage I don't know (well actually I do know).
- thriftwy 4y ago
  Car market just shows you how quickly the consumer experience degrades in light of shortages. Where you were previously offered bonuses and free stuff, now they would be insincere about what's in stock, how many does is actually cost, distribute the best stuff cost-wise among inner circle, try to shave a random extra amount of money from you. As you can see you don't need any kind of especially corrupt souls once incentives are wrong.
- logical_ferry 4y ago
  There are a few differences between you having to wait and a Soviet having to wait for a car multiple years: * You most probably already have a car and just want a newer model. A Soviet citizen just had a bike. * Soviet citizen had one or two models they could choose from. You have a plethora, some of which are probably more readily available than others. Don't compare UK shortages with what the Eastern Bloc went through. They had people going to surgery without anesthesia. You'll manage with your existing car for a bit more.
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    The difference is mostly quantitative. In USSR you could buy a car if you were willing to pay over MSRP (which was mandatory rather than recommended). Simply buy a new car used. Reselling your car immediately after purchase for a profit was a thing. Some people (occupations such as arctic coal miner) had financial means to do so easily. Other people (notably, engineers on non-management positions like most of HN readers today) would never realistically afford one. The choice was indeed very limited. But again, it is mostly a quantitative difference.
    - 4y ago
carapace 4y ago
I heard one that was circulating after the fall, "Everything they told us about Communism was a lie, but everything they told us about Capitalism was true." (Ouch!)
- nopenopenopeno 4y ago
  It cannot be overstated how valuable it is to read Karl Marx’s later work. Among so many other things, he condemned revolutionary efforts in Russia because he viewed capitalism as a necessary stage of progression.
  - carapace 4y ago
    I dunno man, Markist humor seems bourgeois.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - gtsop 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - wging 4y ago
      I believe “revolutionary efforts in Russia“ above means attempts to bring about a revolution; these spanned a period of many decades before 1917.
    - nopenopenopeno 4y ago
      The Russian Revolution was an outcome of many decades of events and revolutionary activities, which were hotly debated among dissidents and activists for many decades before that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dvh 4y ago
Russian and Ukrainian are walking on the street and they both spot $100 bill on the sidewalk. Russian grabs it and says "Let's split like brothers!". And Ukrainian says: "No! Let's split 50:50"
- thriftwy 4y ago
  That probably refers to the fact that poopulation-wise, Belarussians, Ukrainians and Russians are split like Vanyar-Noldor-Teleri (and have physical appearance differencies not unlike those three)
  - dvh 4y ago
    No. It refers to the fact that Russians are grobians.
    - thriftwy 4y ago
      Compared to whom? Ukrainians?
blobby14 4y ago
A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking. The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he's on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques. "What American propaganda techniques?" asks the American. "Exactly," the Russian replies.
cainxinth 4y ago
I collect documentary films. “Hammer & Tickle” (2007) is one of my white whales. Been trying to track it down for years without success. Anyone know where a copy can be bought or downloaded?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
vgel 4y ago
An engineer is messaging with his boss on Slack after hours. The boss says "My brother is in the hospital and needs money for his surgery!" The engineer asks "What are you gonna do?" and the boss responds "Well, he is family..." The engineer responds "You're gonna make him come in on weekends??"
motohagiography 4y ago
- thriftwy 4y ago
  > they also actively murdered tens of millions of civilians Let's punish the communism survivors for all the bad things that happened to them. That's what got us all into the current rabbit hole.
  - motohagiography 4y ago
    How does this punish people who managed to escape? It's not like the neighbourhood snitches and apparatchiks were the real victims, surely? This isn't even about regional partisanship. The article itself says these jokes provided comfort and enabled the participants in what was the most objectively evil system since Robespierre's terror and Leopold of Belgium's African colonialism. They're funny, but they normalize the oppression by demoralizing people. The one thing you're not supposed to tolerate or offer any quarter or sympathy to is this specific urge, which arguably is managing to surface again. And if one isn't actively against it, what could one be for, really?
    - thriftwy 4y ago
      1. You're not supposed to be actively proud of what people were doing during communist rule. Just take a note of facts and move along. 2. However, you seem to be in position of so much privilege that your opinion is worthless and is a disgrace. A whole country cannot "escape". A whole country also does not consist solely from "neighbourhood snitches and apparatchiks". A country and its general population is the victim. You make it sound like it's so easy to fix a dysfunctional society. Go fix zoning laws and housing affordability. Or the fact that incarcerated people are charged for the privilege of being behind bars. This assuming you're from the USA.
      - motohagiography 4y ago
        You don't just move along and forget. A functional society is one that makes sure it never happens again, or here. It may seem like privilege in the context of a sophomoric critical theory, but here in the west we call it freedom. The entire communist system was designed to liquify any moral clarity that would pose resistance to it, and it is as objective an evil as racism, which we all have the imperative to confront. For this reason it deserves the very same level of confrontation. The best thing about these opinions that one might say are worthless and disgraceful is that, I get to have them. And in exchange for making them constructive to discourse and entertaining, I also get to present them in a civil and thoughtful form in open debate. The jokes in the article were funny, but to accept them as comforting normalization of the horrors they were a coping mechanism for does not do justice to the targets of the system that produced them. Keeping the horrors of communism in frame is the very least we can do.

49 points by homarp 4y ago

One more classic story in the same category of humour: Some poor downtrodden men in Leningrad during the height of the Cold War have been hearing about all the wonderful jobs, weather, and food in Siberia. They are eager to move there but they are wary that it might be a trick, and that once there they won’t be allowed to leave. They agree that one of them should go first and write a letter concealing a secret message back to his comrades in Leningrad. If the letter is written in black ink, then life in Siberia is excellent and the others should come. But if it’s written in red ink, then what they’ve been told is all lies. Soon they get a letter from the comrade who volunteered to be the first to go to Siberia. It’s in black ink. They eagerly read his glowing report about life in Siberia, the good jobs, comfortable weather, and bountiful food. Their friend finishes his letter by mentioning that there’s just one thing he hasn’t been able to find: red ink.

cafard 4y ago
A story heard years ago by an acquaintance, of Armenian descent: After WW II, the Soviet Union urged former residents to return. One family member, with wife and children decided to take them up on the offer. He did not really believe that he could write candidly about conditions, and so they agreed that he should send a picture. If he was standing up, things were well, and the rest of the family should consider returning. If he was sitting down, things were no good, and the rest of the family should remain where they were. When they received the picture, he was lying down.

homarp 4y ago

>[article author] also came across a wonderfully overwritten PhD thesis by the Stanford anthropologist Seth Benedict Graham: A Cultural Analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot (anekdot is the Russian word for a political joke). https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/9560/1/grahamsethb_etd2003.pdf https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/9560/1/grahamsethb_etd2003.pd...

gukov 4y ago
An anekdot doesn't have to be political. Actually, most of the time it isn't.

thriftwy 4y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes has lots of examples.

mjklin 4y ago
Honorable mention to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_jokes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_jokes

VictorPath 4y ago

> Why such a long queue?”...“Well,” sighs Marx, “Sometimes we’re out of oil, sometimes we don’t have I've been immersed in shortages for the past two years (try to go buy a car for MSRP), why some UK paper is writing about some far away, long ago shortage I don't know (well actually I do know).

thriftwy 4y ago
Car market just shows you how quickly the consumer experience degrades in light of shortages. Where you were previously offered bonuses and free stuff, now they would be insincere about what's in stock, how many does is actually cost, distribute the best stuff cost-wise among inner circle, try to shave a random extra amount of money from you. As you can see you don't need any kind of especially corrupt souls once incentives are wrong.
logical_ferry 4y ago
There are a few differences between you having to wait and a Soviet having to wait for a car multiple years: * You most probably already have a car and just want a newer model. A Soviet citizen just had a bike. * Soviet citizen had one or two models they could choose from. You have a plethora, some of which are probably more readily available than others. Don't compare UK shortages with what the Eastern Bloc went through. They had people going to surgery without anesthesia. You'll manage with your existing car for a bit more.
- thriftwy 4y ago
  The difference is mostly quantitative. In USSR you could buy a car if you were willing to pay over MSRP (which was mandatory rather than recommended). Simply buy a new car used. Reselling your car immediately after purchase for a profit was a thing. Some people (occupations such as arctic coal miner) had financial means to do so easily. Other people (notably, engineers on non-management positions like most of HN readers today) would never realistically afford one. The choice was indeed very limited. But again, it is mostly a quantitative difference.
  - 4y ago

carapace 4y ago

I heard one that was circulating after the fall, "Everything they told us about Communism was a lie, but everything they told us about Capitalism was true." (Ouch!)

nopenopenopeno 4y ago
It cannot be overstated how valuable it is to read Karl Marx’s later work. Among so many other things, he condemned revolutionary efforts in Russia because he viewed capitalism as a necessary stage of progression.
- carapace 4y ago
  I dunno man, Markist humor seems bourgeois.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gtsop 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - wging 4y ago
    I believe “revolutionary efforts in Russia“ above means attempts to bring about a revolution; these spanned a period of many decades before 1917.
  - nopenopenopeno 4y ago
    The Russian Revolution was an outcome of many decades of events and revolutionary activities, which were hotly debated among dissidents and activists for many decades before that.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

dvh 4y ago

Russian and Ukrainian are walking on the street and they both spot $100 bill on the sidewalk. Russian grabs it and says "Let's split like brothers!". And Ukrainian says: "No! Let's split 50:50"

thriftwy 4y ago
That probably refers to the fact that poopulation-wise, Belarussians, Ukrainians and Russians are split like Vanyar-Noldor-Teleri (and have physical appearance differencies not unlike those three)
- dvh 4y ago
  No. It refers to the fact that Russians are grobians.
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    Compared to whom? Ukrainians?

blobby14 4y ago

A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking. The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he's on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques. "What American propaganda techniques?" asks the American. "Exactly," the Russian replies.

cainxinth 4y ago

I collect documentary films. “Hammer & Tickle” (2007) is one of my white whales. Been trying to track it down for years without success. Anyone know where a copy can be bought or downloaded?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

vgel 4y ago

An engineer is messaging with his boss on Slack after hours. The boss says "My brother is in the hospital and needs money for his surgery!" The engineer asks "What are you gonna do?" and the boss responds "Well, he is family..." The engineer responds "You're gonna make him come in on weekends??"

motohagiography 4y ago

thriftwy 4y ago
> they also actively murdered tens of millions of civilians Let's punish the communism survivors for all the bad things that happened to them. That's what got us all into the current rabbit hole.
- motohagiography 4y ago
  How does this punish people who managed to escape? It's not like the neighbourhood snitches and apparatchiks were the real victims, surely? This isn't even about regional partisanship. The article itself says these jokes provided comfort and enabled the participants in what was the most objectively evil system since Robespierre's terror and Leopold of Belgium's African colonialism. They're funny, but they normalize the oppression by demoralizing people. The one thing you're not supposed to tolerate or offer any quarter or sympathy to is this specific urge, which arguably is managing to surface again. And if one isn't actively against it, what could one be for, really?
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    1. You're not supposed to be actively proud of what people were doing during communist rule. Just take a note of facts and move along. 2. However, you seem to be in position of so much privilege that your opinion is worthless and is a disgrace. A whole country cannot "escape". A whole country also does not consist solely from "neighbourhood snitches and apparatchiks". A country and its general population is the victim. You make it sound like it's so easy to fix a dysfunctional society. Go fix zoning laws and housing affordability. Or the fact that incarcerated people are charged for the privilege of being behind bars. This assuming you're from the USA.
    - motohagiography 4y ago
      You don't just move along and forget. A functional society is one that makes sure it never happens again, or here. It may seem like privilege in the context of a sophomoric critical theory, but here in the west we call it freedom. The entire communist system was designed to liquify any moral clarity that would pose resistance to it, and it is as objective an evil as racism, which we all have the imperative to confront. For this reason it deserves the very same level of confrontation. The best thing about these opinions that one might say are worthless and disgraceful is that, I get to have them. And in exchange for making them constructive to discourse and entertaining, I also get to present them in a civil and thoughtful form in open debate. The jokes in the article were funny, but to accept them as comforting normalization of the horrors they were a coping mechanism for does not do justice to the targets of the system that produced them. Keeping the horrors of communism in frame is the very least we can do.