It's Only a Joke, Comrade!: Humour, Trust and Everyday Life under Stalin

'A stunningly original study of Stalinist society... Essential reading for anyone interested in how human beings navigate a path through times of extraordinary upheaval, privation and danger' – Daniel Beer

In the shadow of the Gulag, Soviet citizens were still cracking jokes. They had to.

Drawing on diaries, interviews, memoirs and hundreds of previously secret documents, It’s Only a Joke, Comrade! uncovers how they joked, coped, and struggled to adapt in Stalin’s brave new world. It asks what it really means to live under a dictatorship: How do people make sense of their lives? How do they talk about it? And whom can they trust to do so?

Moving beyond ideas of ‘resistance’, ‘doublethink’, ‘speaking Bolshevik’, or Stalin’s Cult of Personality to explain Soviet life, it reveals how ordinary people found their way and even found themselves in a life lived along the fault-lines between rhetoric and reality.

'An extraordinary achievement' – Ronald Grigor Suny

'Re-vitalizes our understanding of Soviet society' – Lynne Viola

'Fascinating ... lively, engaging, and at times very funny' – Catriona Kelly

'The best book on Stalinism I've read in a long time' – S.A. Smith

'One of those rare books that not only has to be read by scholars in the field, but is also accessible to a wide readership. Indeed it is an essential read for anybody who wants to get beyond standard views of the "communist joke" and understand what humour really tells us about life under this extraordinary regime' – David Priestland

'A stunningly original study of Stalinist society... Waterlow’s fresh and fluent style crackles with wit and perception... Essential reading for anyone interested in how human beings navigate a path through times of extraordinary upheaval, privation and danger' – Daniel Beer, author of The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile under the Tsars

'An extraordinary achievement. Jonathan Waterlow has found a unique lens into Stalinist society through this brilliant exploration of humor.' – Ronald Grigor Suny, author of The Soviet Experiment

'Re-vitalizes our understanding of Soviet society' – Lynne Viola, author of The Unknown Gulag

'Jonathan Waterlow’s fascinating book is, however, a pioneering historical study of the genre, unique in its sensitivity to the social context in which jokes circulated. Drawing on extensive unpublished material from archives, it captures the contrary functions of these small comic narratives, as instruments of social solidarity and not just of subversion. It is also, as any book about jokes should be, lively, engaging, and at times very funny. A must read for anyone interested in Soviet or indeed Russian culture.' – Catriona Kelly, author of Russian Literature: A Very Short Introduction

'The best book on Stalinism I've read in a long time' – S.A. Smith, author of The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

'A revelatory account of how ordinary citizens experienced Stalinism. Essential reading.' – Andy Willimott, author of Living the Revolution

'One of those rare books that not only has to be read by scholars in the field, but is also accessible to a wide readership. Indeed it is an essential read for anybody who wants to get beyond standard views of the "communist joke" and understand what humour really tells us about life under this extraordinary regime' – David Priestland, author of The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World

'...gives us a powerful insight into the way societies function at times of great stress and into the nature of humanity itself.' – Peter Waldron, Former President of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies

'To breathtaking effect, Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin tapped into the relentlessly dark humour to be found in the USSR at its paranoid peak. Now, Jonathan Waterlow has picked up the baton, exploring the kind of jokes that flourished in Soviet society to help people cope with the uncertainty and despair of living under an authoritarian regime where reality could change overnight.

Tracing how traditional strands of Russian humour adapted to the new era, he discovers that the country couldn’t be neatly split into believers and dissidents. Most citizens were somewhere in between, and making sense of that grey area is what excites Waterlow, particularly when the official version and personal experience intersected and engaged with each other. Thanks to the records of a Soviet Commission on satire, he can tell us what the regime thought of the jokers too. Waterlow provides insight into a people who, more than 25 years after the collapse of the USSR, still remain an enigma.' – The Herald