Hammer and Tickle

Hammer and TickleClandestine Laughter in the Soviet EmpireBy: Petr Beckmann Preface to the Second Edition Since the first edition of the collection was published in 1969, the Soviet Empire has conquered more colonies and has grown more powerful; in part because Americans have been lulled into carefree indifference by the trustees of their security, who have made light of "the inordinate fear of Communism." What is Communism like? The full answer can be learned by living under it; a partial view can be gained by reading such works as Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. But a glimpse of the senseless brutality of Communism is also, in its way, caught by the joke of the sneeze that interrupted Stalin's speech (the first in this collection). The story is, of course, pure fiction; yet the fact that, like the other jokes, it made the rounds, in whispers and amid subdued laughter, through all of the Soviet Empire shows that it was invented well. Only the justified jokes of this savage humor su