HAMMER & TICKLE

More good TV this week...Right now i'm just watching Hammer & Tickle on BBC2.

"Ben Lewis's documentary tells the real history of Communism through the jokes told by ordinary people about the oppressive Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Jokes became the language of truth in a society denied free speech and confronted daily with the gap between political propaganda and reality."

Not keen on this documentary. It's got awful, really unfunny animations in the middle and re-enactments. I guess it's supposed to probably be a little younger audience friendly or something. The jokes alone are funny and it's interesting to see . I guess it's all about Jokes but after reading about Stalin so much lately & the cold war in general it's hard to see the funny side. NEED A BREAK!

It's just touched on a newsreel from when Sputnik 1 was launched... hurraaay

Found a pretty good PDF on the theme.

A man dies and goes to hell. There he discovers that he has a choice: he can go to capitalist hell or to communist hell.
Naturally, he wants to compare the two, so he goes over to capitalist hell. There outside the door is the devil, who looks a bit
like Ronald Reagan. "What's it like in there?" asks the visitor. "Well," the devil replies, "in capitalist hell, they flay you alive,
then they boil you in oil and then they cut you up into small pieces with sharp knives."
"That's terrible!" he gasps. "I'm going to check out communist hell!" He goes over to communist hell, where he discovers a
huge queue of people waiting to get in. He waits in line. Eventually he gets to the front and there at the door to communist hell
is a little old man who looks a bit like Karl Marx. "I'm still in the free world, Karl," he says, "and before I come in, I want to
know what it's like in there."
"In communist hell," says Marx impatiently, "they flay you alive, then they boil you in oil, and then they cut you up into
small pieces with sharp knives."
"But... but that's the same as capitalist hell!" protests the visitor, "Why such a long queue?"
"Well," sighs Marx, "Sometimes we're out of oil, sometimes we don't have knives, sometimes no hot water..."

Sheeeesh......

TV ON MY SIDE

The lost world of communism was on tonight,

'Documentary series on the fall of the Iron Curtain and its legacy. 1989 marked the collapse of communism in Eastern and Central Europe and an end to a way of life for millions of people. Having lived through extraordinary times, they tell their stories of life behind the Iron Curtain, looking beyond the headlines of spies and surveillance, secret police and political repression, to reveal a rich tapestry of experience.
Firstly, a look at the 'socialist paradise' of communist East Germany.'

Although the focus was on East Germany, there was a lot of relevance to my research. There were stories told by people who had been victims of Stalin, there was some horrific realities and it really hit home to what it must have been like.

Thank God for critical studies as I wouldn't be able to relate back to Marxism and be aware of Lenin's contributions to Marxist Theory (Leninism) Also to link Panopticism with the concept of surveillance.

The best thing about it was my discovery of Sandmännchen or Sandman. It was amazing. Good old stop motion animation with models & handmade characters. Really incredible and inspiring.







IGNORE THE END's OF EACH ONE!!!!!! You can see what i mean by this if you dare watch past the Sandmannchen video's, it just turns into completely awful animation. awful.

Goodbye Lenin was on tonight too...