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I still wonder what the roots of his joke are in terms of the actual philosophy/psychology of it. Like, is it supposed to articulate backwardness or the lack of agency enforced by a totalitarian/authoritarian central government?
It's a joke with the Soviet propaganda, I don't remember the specifics but I remember there being a few that had sayings like "In Capitalism the ones with wealth own everyone, In Communism everyone owns the wealth", the closest I could find now is
Where it reads "In Capitalism... In Socialism!"
I doubt he was trying to make make a political statement, I think it was more a savvy joke to make at a time when Russia was such a scary figure in American lives and by painting the USSR as "backward" Americans would laugh in relief, which they did.
another component was that they didn't foster animosity so much as a disarmament of animosity, they weren't jokes about how Russians were stupid but many of the jokes were about how a totalitarian government was not something he wanted and didn't appreciate, " I saw an advertisement with a guarantee for an American furniture company that said ' behind it our furniture for 6 months' and I said that's why I left Russia, I didn't want that".
so I think it's just mostly playing with USSR, identifying with American values and allaying American fear over the USSR.
he has a good delivery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GK8ewRec7c
You think Politburo folks actually privately enjoyed Soviet/Communist humor?
Privately? Sure, the officials dissatisfied with the USSR must have, If they had the opportunity to hear it.
but again they didn't have YouTube, and radio was strictly controlled so there wasn't much opportunity.
I did read an account of USSR secret service history where some of the officials talked about watching American television and listening to the American radio shows.
Can you give me a link for that, would be great reading.
Only if you can easily find it, otherwise don'tworry about it
All the books I'm finding about the history of the FSB and Putin, I would assume they have the same information in there though.
basically putin's a fucking weasel, but he's good at office politics and wormed his way into the FSB and then quietly accrued power using increasingly fascist methods until he had enough leverage to overthrow the government.
"seize the throne" might be a better phrase to use there.
it definitely had Putin rising to power using the FSB in it, but it's not in my recent list, so I'm going to leave it rolling around in the back of my mind and if I find it I'll get back to you.
I can usually remember the books I read, so I'm wondering if this was an extended article instead, cuz I remember reading it for at least a couple hours.