HAMMER AND TICKLE

This often enjoyable but flat-footed compilation and study of jokes from the Soviet bloc has a hard time justifying its existence. Journalist and documentarian Lewis (who made a film of the same title for the BBC) started by imagining Communist jokes as a subversive critique that undermined the totalitarian state, but concludes that they were a politically irrelevant distraction. He looks to them as a window into Communist society, but discovers that most probably they originated long before Lenin appeared. If truth be told, Communist jokes are often pretty lame. For every clever one-liner capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, while communism is the exact opposite, Lewis unearths 10 clunkers like, Why are the East Berliners dumber than the East Friesians? They built a wall and placed themselves on the wrong side. Lewis's explications of jokes are more interesting than the jokes, as are his fencing sessions with unapologetic ex-Communist apparatchiks and with his artist girlfriend, a humorless nostalgist for East Germany. The rueful punch line Lewis leaves us with, almost despite himself, is that Communism was no laughing matter