Authentic Soviet Jokes

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Russian Jokes

The follwing three jokes are ones that were actually told in Communist Russia. Please contribute any that you know.
Waiting In Line:

A man is waiting in a bread line for many hours. Finally he becomes impatient and agitated to the point where he draws an enormous long barrel pistol from inside his coat and loudly proclaims, “I’m going off to shoot the prime minister !!!” The man tells the person behind him to hold his place in line, and stalks off waving the gun furiously. About an hour later, the same guy stamps back up to his place in the line and jams the pistol back into his belt as he resumes his wait. After an unbearable silence, the person behind the guy with the gun asks, “Well? Did you shoot the prime minister?” At which point, the gunman said, “No, there was a line for that too.”
This next one is “Soviet Satellite” humor, found in the Iron Curtain nations on the periphery of the USSR.
The Special Telephone:

Reagan is visiting Brehznev, when, just as he gets to Brehznev’s office, he sees this telephone installation guy leave before he enters. Reagan enters and notices that Brehznev is speaking into the most modern telephone that he has ever seen. Brehznev’s phone has RJ-11, BNC, Fiber Optic, Biaxial, Coaxial and SCSI (scuzzy) connections on it, to name a few. Brehznev motions Reagan to sit down and wait while he finishes the call. Reagan whispers to him, “Who are you talking to?”. Brehznev tells him, “This telephone allows me to contact the dead. I’m speaking to Marx, Lenin and Stalin. They’re giving me all sorts of advice on how to plan for the people’s republic.” Hastily, Reagan says, “Tell you what, I’ve got to wash my hands, ok?”. Reagan ducks out and runs back after the telephone installer and asks him, “How much does Brehznev pay to have a telephone like that?” The installer answers, “Oh, ten maybe twenty bucks a month.” Reagan says, “Fine, I’ll pay you a thousand bucks to install one like that in the White House.” He flies the installer back to Washington D.C. on Air Force One and has him complete the telephone installation. After that, Reagan is getting all sorts of great inside information on how the USSR operates. A month later, the phone bill arrives. Reagan’s eyes almost pop out of his head when he sees that it is for $10,000. Regan flies back to Moscow and finds the telephone installer and asks him, “What’s the meaning of this outrageous phone bill?”. The phone installer says, “Look, you must not understand. Marx, Lenin, Stalin; they’re all dead. They’re all roasting in Hell. You’re long distance, Moscow gets the local rates.”
The Parade:

Ghengis Kahn, Ceaser and Napolean are staring down on the May Day parade in front of the Kremlin as it passes by. Gesturing at the rocket launchers, Khan says, “With fire arrows like that, all of Asia would have been mine.” Ceasar looks at the tanks and says, “With chariots like that, I could have conquered all of Europe.” Napolean takes one look at the newspaper rack where a copy of Tass is on display and says, “With that, no one would ever have found out about Waterloo.”

Non Soviet Joke

The Loan Office:

In a loan office an executive is leaning across his desk with a gigantic sign hung on the wall behind him saying, “WE NEVER SAY NO!”, while he says to the applicant in front of him, “Nyet”.

2

This is a real Polish joke. It’s not funny, but a Polish person said it is funny to Poles because of their opinion of Russians.

Rabbits are fleeing across the border from Russia into Poland. A Polish guard stops one and asks, “Why are you fleeing Russia?”
“Haven’t you heard? They’re castrating the camels!”
A man takes his grandson to the grocery store in Russia in 2020. “Ha!” he says, “You are so lucky! When I was boy, we had to wait in que to buy butter in Soviet Union!”
“Grandfather, what is que?”
“Ha!” smiles the man “Que is line to wait in to buy something.”
“Grandfather, what is butter?”

3

Ahem.

So this Polish peasant farmer is digging in his field one day when he hits something with his shovel. Picking it up and dusting it off, he recognizes it as an old lamp. A genie pops out and offers him three wishes. The Pole thinks about his wishes for the entire day and finaly decides. “Genie”, he says, “I want the Mongol hordes to sweep through Poland.” The Genie snaps his fingers and a low rumbling sound of hoofbeats is heard. Over the horizon come the Mongol hordes which ride down and kill everything in their path. They wheel around and ride back out. The farmer picks himself up and asks for the same thing for his second wish. Again the Mongols ride in and destroy everything in their path. Whatever they didn’t kill last time, they kill this time. Whatever they killed last time, they set on fire. They wheel around and ride back out. The Pole picks himself up and asks for the same thing for his third wish. This time the Mongols don’t even bother to stop since there isn’t anything left to destroy. The genie just can’t stand it any more. “You could have had anything. ANYTHING!”, the genie says. “Why did you waste your wishes on this?” The farmer replies, “In order for the Mongols to ride over Poland three times, they would have had to go through Russia six times.”

-LabRat

4

let’s see if I can do this one right.

Two old ladies are flying on Aeroflot, the russian airline.
The state-of-the art, 4 engined turbofan jet is whisking them to some unknown city. Suddenly, there is a thud. The pilot comes on the intercom. “We have lost an engine, but do not panic, this is a well built aircraft. It will simply take us 30 minutes longer.” Everyone looks worried, but calms down and the flight goes on. Another thud, and the pilot again “We have lost another engine, do not worry, the plane is fine, it will simply take us an hour longer.” A while later, another thud. “We have lost the third engine. We have everything under control, and will be arriving 2.5 hours late.”
At this, one lady tells the other “If we lose that other engine, we will be up here all day.”

5

More jokes from Poland:

Do you know that in the USSR wheat grows like telephone poles?

Yes, and sometimes even more densely!
A Russian, a Pole and a Czech go to a hotel. In the morning the Czech wakes up first and goes out to buy a newspaper. Then the Pole wakes up and goes to a cafe to buy some coffee. Then the hotel collapses, killing the Russian.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Now dat eez classic Soviet joke, yes?

You have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh.

6

A man goes off to the transport ministry for permission to buy a car.

He is told he must wait for two years so he says,“Promise me that it will be in the afternoon”

The official says, “Why do you worry ? it’s going to be two years from now?”

He says"Because the plumber will be coming round in the morning"

7

Russians, on the subject of Germans—"A German; a nice fellow, maybe. But better to shoot him. "

8

Most of these come via P. J. O’Rouke:

A man waits in line for hours at the butcher shop, hoping to buy some meat, only to be told they have run out. He starts to loudly complain. A secret policeman comes over to calm him, then adds “be glad it isn’t like the old days” – at this point the officer points his finger at his head, imitating a pistol being fired.
The dejected shopper goes home, and his wife asks, “Did they run out of meat?”
“Worse, they’ve run out of bullets”.

A Soviet and U.S. general start bragging about which side treats their soldiers better.
The Soviet general says that they feed their soldiers dinners of 2000 calories. The U.S. general responds that his troop’s dinners are 3000 calories. “Liar” yells the Soviet general, “no one can eat a whole bag of potatoes at one sitting!”

Party Secretary Brezhnev is being driven in an official limo, but complains that the driver is too slow. Finally, in frustration, he tells the driver to stop so that Brezhnev can drive. After switching places, the car speeds down the road. A short time later, two traffic police pull over the limo for speeding. One officer approaches, turns pale, and waives it on, without writing a ticket. Shaken, he returns to his partner who asks; “Well, who was it?” “I don’t know, but Brezhnev was his chauffeur”.

A Soviet and an American argue who has the most political freedom. The American says “At any time I can walk up to the gates of the White House and yell ‘Down with America!’ without getting into any trouble”. The Soviet responds: “That is nothing. At any I can go up to the Kremlin wall, and yell ‘Down with America!’, and I wouldn’t get into any trouble either!”

9

This is one that my professor, a man who not only lived in Russia, but spent time in the GULAGS told me,

Stalin was having a cabinet meeting and he was going over the minutes when someone gave a loud sneeze.
Instantly, he looked, up, frowning, and said, very deeply,
“WHO SNEEZED?”
No one would raise their hand. So Stalin motioned to the KGB officers and had all of the first row taken out and shot.
Again, Stalin looked up and said, “WHO SNEEZED?”
Again, no one answers, so, Stalin has the KGB take the second row out to be shot.
And then, STalin looks up and says, “WHO SNEEZED?”
And again, no one answers, so the KGB takes the third row out and has them shot.
Now, STalin’s pissed. “WHO SNEEZED!”
By now, the sneezer is all sweating and nervous and leaps out of his seat yelling, “I sneezed, Comrade Stalin! I sneezed!”
And Stalin nods, and says, “God Bless You, now continue with meeting.”

10

My favorite Soviet Joke by Mayakovsky.
Is a true story no less.

In 1922 Trotsky then the Peoples Commissar for War invited Mayakovsky to his office to interview him on the subject of modern russian poetry for the book he was then writing “Literature and Revolution.”
Trotsky asked Mayakovsky “what do you think? How was that for a first try?”
Mayakovsky replied “The first pankace falls like a People’s Commissar” (prevy blin lyog narkomom), a play on the saying “the first pancake falls like a lump,” (prevy blin lyog Komom).
:slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:
well, ** I ** thought it was funny.

Osip

11

An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Russian were once discussing the meaning of true happiness.

The Englishman said, “True happiness, my friends, is rising early on a frosty fall morning, getting on top of a good horse, and galloping off behind the hounds in pursuit of the fox. A hard ride over fields and fences and rivulets until the fox is brought down. A ride back with the ears and the tail and then sitting before a roaring fire with a glass of good port. Ah, that is true happiness.”

The Frenchman said, "That is not true happiness. That is merely animal pleasure. True happiness is meeting with the love of your life, having an excellent meal in a topnotch restaurant with champagne, and then retiring to a wonderful hotel room, where you can make frantic and impassioned love all night long. Ah, that is true happiness.

The Russian said, “That is not true happiness. That is merely a good time. True happiness comes when you are sitting in your apartment after a hard day at the factory, your little Ivan on your knee, and reading your copy of Pravda. There comes a knock at the door. Three men in ill-fitting brown suits come storming in and say ‘Stepan Stepanovich,’ and you say, ‘He lives in the rooms upstairs.’ Ah, that is true happiness!”

[/quote]

There was a long queue of people waiting for the butcher shop to open. A Russian official comes by and says, “Are there any Jews in this queue?” Some people reluctantly nodded their heads. The official says, “There is not enough meat. All Jews have to leave. There will be no meat for them today!” And all the Jews leave the queue. The official leaves.

Two hours pass, and the shop isn’t open yet. The official returns and says, “Are there any who are not members of the Communist Party in this queue?” Some people nodded their heads. The official says, “There is not enough meat. All those who are not members of the Communist Party have to leave. There will be no meat for them today!” And all the non-Party members leave the queue. The official leaves.

Two more hours pass, and the shop still isn’t open. The official returns and says, “Comrades, I’m sorry, but there will be no meat today.” One of the people says, “I should have known. The Jews ALWAYS get the best deal!”

12

A new prisoner arrives at a labor camp, and one of the prisoners asks what he was sentenced for. “Nothing! I did nothing at all, and they gave me forty years!” said the new arrival. The other prisoner replies “That’s impossible; for nothing you only get twenty years.”

Did you hear about the man who called Stalin a fool? He got fifty-five years: five years for slander, and fifty years for revealing a state secret.

13

Don’t know if this is true or not but I heard that workers used to say to each other “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work”

14

Brezhnev was talking with some foreign leaders, and the topic of political jokes came up. To everyone’s surprise, Brezhnev said he loved political jokes about the Soviet system. In fact, he collected them. One of the other leaders asked him how many he had. Brezhnev thought for a minute, then said, ‘Four concentration camps full.’

15

Post-Berlin wall motto of the communist party:

Workers of the world, we’re sorry.

16

There is a 1988 compilation of jokes “told by people behind the Iron Curtain” called Russian Express, edited by George Forrai. Most likely out of print, though.

Lots of good ones are included. Some of my favorites that haven’t been mentioned:

  1. Did you know there are only two channels on Soviet TV? The first one contains only propaganda. The second one shows a KGB officer telling you to change to the first channel.

  2. A Russian peasant applies to join the Party.
    He’s asked “Are you prepared to sacrifice your house for the sake of the Party?”
    The peasant answers "Yes.
    “Are you prepared to sacrifice your car for the sake of the party?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you prepared to sacrifice your wife for the sake of the party?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you prepared to sacrifice your horse for the sake of the party?”
    “No…”
    “Why not?”
    “Because, comrade, I have a horse.”

  3. An old Jew is reading a Hebrew book in a Moscow park. A KGB agent walks up to him and asks “Why are you reading a Hebrew book?”
    The old man replies, “Why, I want to learn Hebrew in case I go to Heaven.”
    “Aha,” the KGB agent says, “But what if you go to the other place?”
    “Well, Russian I already know.”

  4. Q: Why is communism superior to any other economic system?
    A. Because communism is able to cope with problems that do not exist in any other system.

  5. Q: What happens to a communist when an atomic bomb falls on him?
    A: Not too much. He changes into radioactive matter and continues harming everyone.

  6. Three Russians in the gulag are talking about why they were arrested.
    The first says, “I am here because I was always late for work. My bosses thought I was trying to sabotage our production.”
    The second says, “I was arrested because I was always early for work–they thought I was a spy.”
    The third says, “I’m here because I was always on time for work. I had a Swiss watch.”

  7. “Do you know how to help a drowning Communist?”
    “No.”
    “Good.”

  8. Marx, Engels and Stalin meet in Hell. The devil leads the three down a long dark corridor to a door leading to a small, dank, dark, cell. He pushes Marx inside, where an ugly, diseased and horrible 500 year old woman awaits him. The devil says, “Marx, you have sinned on earth. This is your punishment…” He locks Marx in.
    The devil then takes Engels to the next door, opens it and shoves Engels into the cell. Inside the cell is a 1,000 year old woman, even more horrible than the woman in the previous cell. The devil says, “Engels, you have sinned on earth. This is your punishment…” He locks Engels in.
    The devil has only Stalin left. He leads Stalin down the corridor down to the last cell, opens it, shoves Stalin in. Bo Derek is in the cell. The devil says, “Bo Derek, you have sinned on earth…”

  9. Two Russians meet in a Moscow park.
    One says, “Did you hear…Pavlovic has died.”
    The other replies, “I didn’t even know he had been arrested.”

  10. It’s Christmas Day in the gulag.
    The camp commandant assembles all the prisoners and tells them he has good news and bad news.
    “The good news is that you will each have a new change of underwear,” he says. “The bad news is…Ivan, change with Igor, Igor change with Gregorin, Gregorin change with Pavlovich…”

However, my favorite anti-Soviet joke appears in a Grin and Bear It cartoon from the mid 70s. (I’m paraphrasing here, as the cartoom isn’t at hand.) The cartoon shows an arrested man in the office of the Commissar of Human Rights. The commissar is speaking, “Yes, comrade, we do have human rights. However, you have not been declared to be human yet.”

17

…is the title of a book I found in Borders a few weeks ago. It is a 1986 publication of a purportedly underground pamphlet; I was most pleased to find it because a friend gave me an incomplete printout when I was in St. Petes.

Herewith, a few authentically Soviet jokes.

Q. What did Khruschev bring to scientific Communism?
A. A regional accent to the pronunciation.

An old man is at a Pioneers’ camp, recounting his memories of Lenin and the first Communist subbotnik.

“They came and got Fyodor and me early in the morning and took us to the Kremlin grounds. This little red-bearded fella in a cap comes up to us and says ‘Help me move this log, comrades!’ ‘You can go to hell,’ we said… I haven’t seen Fyodor since, and they only let me out last month…”

When they took Stalin out of the mausoleum and reburied him in the Kremlin wall, a wreath appeared beside it with the following inscription: “TO THE POSTHUMOUSLY REPRESSED FROM THE POSTHUMOUSLY REHABILITATED”.

Q. How do the Czechs know the earth is round?
A. In 1945 they drove their occupiers out towards the west. In 1968 they came back from the east.

Q. Why did Ilyin, who attempted to assasinate Brezhnev, miss his mark?
A. Everyone else around him was trying to get the pistol so they could have a chance.

Q. What is the KPSS? (Russian abbreviation for CPSU)
A. A group of voiceless consonants. (In the Russian, this phrase can also be read as “mute and in agreement”.)

And, finally…
A time of no anecdotes (bezanekdotye).
-What is the CPSU?
-I don’t know.
-Really? (whispers) Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

18

After Stalin was denounced, the Soviet leaders decide that they don’t want him buried in the USSR anymore, so they consider their options. One smart comrade comes up with the idea of exhuming him and burying him in another country. They ring around to the leaders of the other countries but don’t have any luck - nobody wants the old tyrant in their backyard, even if it is under the ground.

At the end of a long day, another comrade comes up with an idea - “What about Israel - they seem to be becoming a military power, and maybe we can let them think we are their allies to weaken their partnership with the USA”. They all decide that’s a great idea and take it to the the President the next day.

He looks at them with horror and yells “Israel - how could you suggest such a thing?!?! You KNOW that’s the country with the highest rate of people coming back from the dead!!!”

HenrySpencer