The downfalls and upsides of being a History Nerd

The Sexy Slytherin Snape Syrena Sodomite wank just isn't as funny as it should be for me, because I kept wanting to make historical corrections, like, "No! You're completely wrong about the origin of the dating of Christmas!" But I restrained myself, which is much better than some others I can name. Instead, here's something I really thought was funny, from research for a paper I'm writing.

from M.F. Shkiriatov's speech at the Central Committee plenum of 7-12 January 1933, quoted p. 89 in The Road To Terror: Stalin and the Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932 - 1939. J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov.

"I would like to speak out of one other antiparty method of operation, namely, the so-called jokes. What are these jokes? Jokes against the party constitute agitation against the party. Who among us Bolsheviks does not know how we fought against tsarism in the old days, how we told jokes in order to undermine the authority of the existing system? We know that all factional groups always resorted to such a method of malicious, hostile agitation. This has also been employed as a keen weapon against the Central Committee of the party."

M.F. Shkiriatov to be declared saint of Serious Business?

(Post a new comment)

	baranduyn 2007-10-28 11:36 pm UTC (link)
	:) But c'mon, the great part of being a history geek is throwing out bits of Shocking But True knowledge and making the unwilling recipients of your knowledge cringe. (Reply to this)

	eilisliana 2007-10-28 11:58 pm UTC (link)
	When I think I know something and the other person is incorrect, I start babbling historical facts. (Reply to this)

azazello
2007-10-29 06:31 am UTC (link)

I wonder if M.F. Shkiriatov had ever heard the one about Lenin, Krupskaya and Dzherzhinsky hiding in the wardrobe? It's easily one of the most irreverant jokes about the founders, and only outranked by the one that has implied same-sex drunken sex between Zinoviev/Dherzhinsky.

Feliks Dherzhinsky (in case you do not know) founded the Cheka (a forerunner of the KGB) and was famed as being cleaner than clean, so there are a lot of jokes where he features in extra-marital triangles, or worse.

For a long time, anti-party jokes were dealt with as subversion and there is/was a documented case of a Czech academic who collected them and fell foul of the investigators. His story was dramatised in either the 70s or 80s on tv.

Serious bidness, indeed.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	Indeed narcissam 2007-10-29 05:40 pm UTC (link)
	It's rather suggested Shkiriatov knew a lot of jokes himself, to be so vehement against them, isn't it? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	emiweebee 2007-10-29 11:37 pm UTC (link)
	I still don't see how they can be against jokes. They were kings of jokes. "Last year we produced how much grain? Well, this year, it'll triple. Never mind about the drought!" (Reply to this)(Thread)

	sorry, hit post too fast narcissam 2007-11-02 02:18 am UTC (link)
	LOL. I was just reading an article about that. The 1936 harvest: The USSR's BEST CROP EVER. Until about November of 1936 when they admitted it'd been the worst in 20 years. (Reply to this)(Parent)