Things like sarcasm tend to be common in strongly authoritarian/totalitarian societies, especially when people see that the claims of the regime don’t match reality and there’s no way to legally and openly express dissent. It becomes a form of low level, and relatively safe rebellion. So, for example, some jokes from, first, Nazi Germany, and second, the Soviet Union.
“There won’t be any elections in the near future. That’s because there was a break in at the propaganda ministry and the results were stolen from Goebbels desk.”
"The army is like a clock, except a clock moves forward and says “Tik-tak”, and the army goes backwards and says “Taktik”
"A man wants to buy a pig from a farmer, but he says it has to be an aryan pig. “What’s that?”, the farmer asks. “Well”, the man answers. “It has to have bristles like Hitler, a snout like Goebbels and a belly like Goering!”
"The girl says, “My father is in the SA, my oldest brother in SS, my little brother in the HJ, my mother is part of the NS womens organisation, and Im in the BDM "
Do you ever get to see each other, asks the girl’s friend?
Oh yes, we meet every year at the party rally in Nuremberg!”
An American and a Soviet soldier kill each other and end up at the pearly gates
at the same time. Peter says" well, we have national division in hell as well,
but you may choose where you’d like to go. There is an American hell and a
Russian hell."
American: what’s the difference?
Peter: well, in the American hell you have to eat a shovel of shit a day.
Russian: and in Russian hell?
Peter: two shovels of shit.
American: I’ll go to American hell.
Russian: well, two shovels of shit, it’s not nice, but I was a Russian alive
and I died a Russian and I’ll go to Russian hell.
Millenniums later, the same two soldiers end up doing sentry duty at the
checkpoint at the border between American and Russian hell at the same time.
Russian: Hi hi hi! How you doing! Long time no see!
American: Hey! How are you, you look good!
Russian: how is it over there in American hell?
American: oh, one shovel of shit a day, you get used to it. How about Russian
hell?
Russian: well, you know how it is, one day there’s no shit, the next day no
shovels. . .
A man walks into a grocery store with a notebook. “Do you have sausage?” “No.” He makes a note. “Bread?” “No.” He makes another note. “20 years ago, they would have shot you for making notes like that,” says a woman waiting in line. “No bullets either,” he writes.
Four dogs – Mexican, American, Polish, Russian – are discussing their lives. The Mexican dog says, “the servants used to leave meat out for me, but now I have to bark for it.” The American dog says, “you have servants in Mexico?” The Polish dog says, “they feed you meat?” The Russian dog says, “they let you bark?”