The Stalin we loved, the Stalin with a song in his heart…

In a post on Soviet joke-cracking, courtesy of Boing-Boing, we have a repetition of a joke purportedly told by Stalin himself:

A Georgian delegation comes, they talk to Stalin, and then they go, heading off down the Kremlin’s corridors. Stalin starts looking for his pipe. He can’t find it. He calls in Beria, the dreaded head of his secret police. “Go after the delegation, and find out which one took my pipe,” he says. Beria scuttles off down the corridor. Five minutes later Stalin finds his pipe under a pile of papers. He calls Beria—”Look, I’ve found my pipe.” “It’s too late,” Beria says, “half the delegation admitted they took your pipe, and the other half died during questioning.”

Interesting post on the subversive character of humor and some very funny material.

I may have told this one before but here’s my favorite Soviet-era joke, which I heard from a Pole.  Here’s the motto of the Warsaw Pact:  “Czech industrial might, East German civility, Polish sobriety, Russian respect for law, joined by a common understanding of the Hungarian language.”