Why do Soviets like to tell political jokes?

The collapse of the former Soviet regime began with the loss, loss, decay and disintegration of faith.

The main reason for the collapse of belief lies not in the outside, but in the separation of this belief system from reality and its internal contradictions and mistakes.

Faith exposes its contradictions and mistakes, which does not mean that it will be replaced by other beliefs. In fact, under compulsion, even if its emptiness and absurdity have been exposed, people will seriously deceive each other and pretend to believe that it is still the hope of the future.

But most people can feel the emptiness and absurdity, which is enough to make this belief a "joke" of ideological myth in their eyes.

The essence of jokes is "disharmony", and Kant clearly explained the contradiction of "disharmony"-"In everything that makes people laugh, there must be something absurd (that is, people can't get a satisfactory understanding of it)".

Soviets can't get a satisfactory understanding of the beliefs instilled in them in real life, and it is inevitable to doubt the authenticity and legitimacy of this belief.

Leaders' crimes

The first belief crisis is mainly disillusionment caused by leaders' mistakes.

The people of the Soviet Union's vacillation of faith can be traced back to Khrushchev's tip-off to Stalin. The report revealed the cruel and dark secrets of Stalin's rule, which had a long-term "wake-up" effect on future generations of Soviets, especially the mature Soviets and Eastern Europeans in the 1960 s (the "post-60 s" of the Soviet Union).

As a passer-by said, "It's like being hit on the head with a hammer." Pavel kohut, a Czechoslovakian poet and writer, was a staunch Stalinist. At the age of 28, when he learned Khrushchev's secret report, he felt that "the whole world had collapsed" and he "cried all night".

The sudden loss of a god-like leader is an unprecedented disaster, which has caused many people to fall into extreme mental panic. Zizek? Me? Ek) wrote that Khrushchev's speech "shook the absolute authority of leadership dogma to the point where all political elites fell into temporary collapse."

A dozen loyal Stalin followers were insane because of Khrushchev's speech and even needed medical help. Among them, Poland's tough Pablo Birut died of a heart attack. A few days later, Fadeev, a model writer of Stalinism, also shot himself. ".

This is the first disillusionment in the Soviet Union, and it is also the first thing of the Soviet people's triple belief crisis in Marxism. These triple crises will coexist, and their respective influence scope and degree will change with the development of the times, forming the characteristics of belief crisis in different times or stages.

The first crisis of faith was mainly disillusionment with the mistakes, failures and atrocities of leaders. The despotism and dishonesty of leaders will make people generally feel consternation, panic and fear, and will also make them fall into a kind of pain and despair of betrayal and betrayal.

* * (such as Stalin and beria) People who rule in the name of Marxism, their personality defects and moral corruption make the cause of Marxism lose people's hearts and ruin its legitimacy. Khrushchev obviously underestimated the consequences of the secret report destroying the faith of * * *. Gorbachev recorded in his memoirs that mátyas rákosi, the leader of the Hungarian Party, heard Khrushchev's report and said to andropov, "You can't do this, you can't be in such a hurry. What happened at your party congress was a disaster. I don't know what it will bring to your country and my country. "

What Rakosi foresaw was a disaster of faith crisis. Once the scandal of the leader is exposed, it is like an elf released from a bottle. It is impossible to put it back in the bottle and it is impossible to "eliminate the bad influence". The "re-Stalinization" in Brezhnev period could not eliminate the long-term influence of Khrushchev's secret report. Although Khrushchev later tried to make up for the damage to * * * belief by promising to realize * * * productism within 20 years, it was always ineffective. Since then, the Soviet Union has entered a long process of stagnation, decline and terminal illness. Ideology is losing popularity more and more, and it is difficult to revive it. Because of the loss of faith, the whole bureaucratic system has fallen into the mire of money worship and self-enrichment.

First, the disillusionment of faith can hardly stay at the level of disappointment with a few leaders or * * for a long time, because sooner or later it will arouse people's doubts: Why are there so many sadistic figures in the Soviet system who are so selfish, greedy, vicious and shameless, not individual, but batch after batch?

As early as the early days of the Soviet regime, dzerzhinsky (founder of the All-Russian Committee for the Elimination of Counterrevolutionaries, referred to as "Cheka"), who was famous for his integrity, seemed to have realized that the Soviet secret police "Cheka" was a system that needed and produced thugs. Dzerzhinsky said that there are only two kinds of people who work for Cheka, "saints and villains, but now all saints have left me, and only villains are left". "Cheka's work attracts some guys who are basically corrupt or criminals ... No matter how honest a person looks and how pure his heart is ... as long as he works in Cheka, he will show his true colors".

Dmitri Golov, a former Soviet general who served as special assistant to the Russian President during Yeltsin's term, said that in the Soviet political police (NKVD) in the mid-1930s, there were only two types of officers, "heartless cynics and sadists who lost their conscience".

Nikolai Khoklov, a spy of the former Soviet Union, recalled that when he was in charge of recruiting new soldiers, Pavel Sudoplatov, a senior KGB official, gave him instructions: "Look for those who have been hurt by fate or nature-those who are ugly, have inferiority complex, love power and influence, but have been frustrated repeatedly. Or look for people who are not hungry but humiliated by poverty ... such people will gain a sense of superiority because they belong to an influential and powerful organization ... they will taste their important benefits for the first time in their lives, so they will unswervingly integrate with power. "

Not only spies or policemen, but also other people were promoted, Brezhnev's niece Balu Brezhnev wrote. "The official constantly emphasizes the smashing of public enemies, which awakens the most despicable instinct in human nature. ..... The whistleblower was commended and became a role model for young people. They are not only economically beneficial, but also promoted. "

Lofty ideals and gloomy reality

What causes the crisis of Marxist second belief is the huge gap between lofty ideals and dark reality, which is often regarded as the huge gap between theory and practice.

The terrorist rule of Stalin's secret police made countless Soviets, including Soviet supporters and fellow travelers, the targets and victims of bloody repression. Suffering is the best sobering agent and the best realistic education. The great contrast between lofty belief ideals and gloomy life reality makes more and more people question the morality and legitimacy of the Soviet system.

The cruel rule of the Soviet Union is a violent system, a struggle meat grinder initiated and maintained by those who are particularly violent, cruel and heartless. Once those who especially advocate violence create, establish and maintain a system they want, the system will automatically choose those accomplices and defectors who are consistent with it, and will ensure its continued rule at all costs. This is the self-regeneration and continuation mechanism of the violent system.

The inheritance relationship between pioneers and successors is established in the homogeneous continuation of the system, and the public's disappointment with these people will naturally become disappointment with this system.

Amy Knight, an American historian, pointed out in beria: Stalin's First Deputy that beria, the head of the secret police in Stalin's time, was a notorious vicious figure. However, "it would be foolish to think that beria is an exception to the Soviet system ...".

Peter Hrubi, a Czech writer and scholar, said: "There are a few criminals in the population of every country. In totalitarian countries, such people have the best chance. They not only have the opportunity to make a fortune, but also have the opportunity to be proud of serving a great cause. "

The villain beria prospered because Stalin appreciated him, and a leader like Stalin needed a deputy like beria. Amy Knight wrote: "Stalin and his deputies took little or no account of the Soviet people in their decision-making. What brings these rulers together is that they all despise individual people and hurt the people mercilessly. " A system and its quality are closely related to the quality of its main operators. The evil and corruption embodied in these people will definitely have a great destructive effect on the credibility and moral image of this system.

What causes the crisis of Marxist second belief is the huge gap between lofty ideals and dark reality, which is often regarded as the huge gap between theory and practice. Paul Holland, an expert in Soviet history, pointed out that "Soviet society pursues social justice, creates group consciousness, establishes the trust relationship between citizens and * *, and regards the masses as responsible adults who can make choices." However, Soviet society is full of cruel class struggle and atrocities of persecuting political dissidents, and there is no justice at all. People live in the fear of betrayal and betrayal, full of suspicion and hostility to each other or leaders, and it is difficult to have trust. The government even orders people around, treating them as ignorant children or mentally retarded. Power rule "abandoned all Marxist moral ideals and replaced them with a ubiquitous and ubiquitous lie system."

Polish poet Alexander? Alexander Watt was once an intellectual. He is disillusioned with productism, because his hatred of productism has turned into a lie. He said, "Losing freedom, suffering from tyranny and hunger will be easier to bear, if these are not free, just and happy lives."

Bad things are bad enough. It is even worse to say bad things are good things, which makes people more suspicious and disbelieve in the propaganda of lies. Igor Kon En, a Soviet philosopher and psychologist, also pointed out that the serious contradiction between * * *' s socialist ideal and Soviet socialist practice was the main reason why the Soviets rejected * * * productism.

He wrote: "The reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Empire include the psychological crisis of the Soviets. This crisis has been haunting Soviet society since1970s, and finally dragged on in1980s. Indifference, cynicism and alcoholism ... are all factors that led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union ... Gorbachev's reform failed to fulfill his promise because his designers underestimated the anger of Soviet society, which has been spreading among the people since the collapse of the Soviet ideological myth. "

Beliefs and false beliefs

The fatal internal injury of the Soviet system is caused by internal factors rather than external threats. They don't attack this belief, but play it as a joke.

The third crisis of belief in Marxism in the Soviet Union was due to people's new understanding that the theory that the Soviet Union believed in itself was flawed and could not be overcome by itself. Yugoslav politician Milovan Djilas pointed out that the failure of capitalism is the result of "self-destruction", not the result of being destroyed by external forces.

He wrote, "The idea itself contains the seeds of its later collapse. This result has long been waiting to happen in the concept of * * * capitalism ... * * * capitalism was killed by itself rather than others. It slowly decays by itself ... people see that it is just a completely mediocre and extremely simplified ideal ... Such an ideal may inspire us to sacrifice and have noble behavior, but it is also the opium of the soul, which makes people unconscious ... As the ugly reality fueled by this ideal is more and more clearly exposed to people, it will dry up and die. "

He pointed out that Marxist theory and Stalinist practice are not contradictory, but consistent. However, the belief in productism was abandoned by the Soviets, and it was not only the personal atrocities of Stalin or beria, nor even the deviation of Stalin's socialism from Marxism, but the productism itself. In the words of Peter Haroubi, the most important connection between Leninism and Stalinism is that they both "believe in ruthless class struggle". Holland has a similar view on class struggle: "I think that the relentless struggle everywhere makes (Marxists) lose their sensitivity to morality, and also provides legitimacy for abusing violence in a social system that does not need violence."

Vladimir Facas, a former senior leader of the Hungarian secret police, reflected that the Soviet Union was even more absurd than Germany (Nazi) because "it used the noblest ideals of mankind by deception, but the Nazis did not do so after all".

David Pryce-Jones, a British writer and political commentator, believes that no other country in the world can compare with the Soviet Union in terms of political violence. No country has harmed itself like the Soviet Union, killing so many people in its own country. Of course, the Soviet Union is not the only country like this. In the name of capitalism, persecution and killings have also occurred in other countries. Its targets are not only "enemies", but also "own people"-comrades-in-arms, comrades-in-arms, and even successors chosen by the leaders themselves.

When discussing arthur koestler's Dark at Noon (1940), George Orwell thought that Kossler, who used to be party member, had also experienced such disillusionment with the "revolution", and "the revolution itself is a process of corruption. ..... not only' power leads to corruption', but also the way of obtaining power leads to corruption. Therefore, all efforts to transform society through violent means will eventually lead to (big cleaning) interrogation rooms; Lenin led to Stalin, and if Lenin were still alive, he would be like Stalin. "

Polish philosopher and ideologist leszek kolakowski pointed out that the Soviet Union was an unrealistic utopia from the beginning. Once people see this clearly, it is impossible to regard it as a guiding belief in real life. He wrote, "Marx seems to be imagining that as long as the capitalists are eliminated, the whole world will become a market in Athens. As long as the private ownership of machines and land is abolished, human beings will no longer be selfish and live in harmony from then on. "

Holland pointed out that a regime is supported by utopian ideals and highly centralized in its name. Such a system is much more unstable than one that neither needs utopian ideal nor highly centralized power. It needs constant violence to maintain stability. The more violence is used, the more unstable it becomes. This is the reason why the Soviet system is not as stable as the western democratic system. This is a fatal internal injury of the Soviet system, and its instability is caused by internal factors, not external threats.

It is a utopian idea to think that government power can control all aspects of social life, including people's beliefs. Richard Pipers, a Polish-American scholar, believes that this disgusting way of control eventually became a major reason why the Soviets hated ideology. He pointed out that this regulatory rule "wants to regulate all aspects of life and create a social environment in which moral choices and differences are abolished and personal interests and social interests are completely harmonious." This control mode makes everything that does not meet its requirements, even ordinary little things in life, become political resistance.

Many political jokes in the Soviet Union are not directed at the government, political parties, political ideas or policies, but are playful responses to small things that are regulated in life. Because these things are regulated by ideological political authority, joking about them becomes an offence and disrespect to this authority, and becomes a political joke, including the beliefs they pretend to believe but don't actually believe.

They don't attack this belief, but play it as a joke.