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The Early Postwar Years Many in the USSR hoped that victory in 1945 would leave the Soviet government secure enough to abandon the heavy-handedness of the interwar period . Ordinary citizens felt they had proven themselves by resisting the Nazi onslaught and deserved credit for their service. Peasants hoped that the hated collective farms would be disbanded. Workers looked forward to a broader availability of consumer goods. Officers talked of having a greater say in national affairs. Members of the intelligentsia expressed an interest in a lifting of censorship at home and expanding contacts with colleagues abroad.1 Needless to say, none of this ever came to pass-such expectations may have actually contributed to the party's reassertion of staunch ideological controls during the mid-to-late 1940s. It is hard to know how Soviet society responded to this renewed repression . If the interwar period provides any clue, ordinary Soviets probably grumbled, kvetched, and dissembled as they had in times past. Such conclusions are difficult to document, however, due to the fragmentary na ture of accessible information on Soviet political humor after 1945. This gap in the historical record is chiefly due to the postwar establishment of separate Allied occupation zones, which effectively halted the westward flight of Soviet refugees , deserting soldiers, and former Ostarbeiter slave laborers. Indeed, with the exception of a few defectors, all the former Soviets interviewed in the early 1950s by Evgenii Andreevich or the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System had left the USSR before the end of the war. Perhaps this explains why the postwar jokes that they told diverge somewhat from contemporary concerns in Soviet society- by late 1945, Soviet refugees in central Europe had been cut off from their homeland and were no longer able to comment reliably on the postwar trajectory of Stalin-era political humor. TID fAYXOi1: M e CTHOCTM, CKB03b Aee, MAeT MOA0,4a51 )I(eHlll,MHa c pe6eHKOM Ha pyKax. 3a HeM cAe40M -oKeTe .. .. - ITOMl1AYMTe, Bo-ne pBbIX, Y MeIDl H eT Ta KQro Ha Mep e H M.51, BO-BTOPblX, y Bac Be AL pe6eHoKHa pyKax ... )l(eHlL\l1Ha 6bICTpO: - TaK 3TO HM4ero, pe6eHKa JI Mory H3 rp3BKY nOllO)l(l1Tb .... her. - Hey, why are you running? Are you afraid of me? -Of course I'm scared. - What are you scared of? - Well, you could do whatever you please with a defenseless woman. You could rape her.... - My dear, 1have no such intention and in any case, you have a baby in your arms.... The woman replies hastily: - Well, that's nothing: I could always lay the baby down in the grass2 *** B O,LJ,H0I1113 BaccaAbHbIX cTpaH, TOT'-lac nOCAe ee «ocBo6o)l(,4eHl1JI» AeMOHCTp"pyeTOI COBeTCKI1M XpOHl1KaALHblM qH1AbM. Ha 3KpaH e BCTpe4a CTaAMHa c E eHelllOM. CTaAl1H nOA,XO,J,l1T KEeHew y c rrpOTJlHyroM PYKOM, 11 B 3TOT MOMeHT pa 3,4aeTOr B03fAac O,4HorO 113 Kl1H0 3pl1Te Ae i1: -,4aBai1: 4aC bI. Ha KOHpaHL\l1l1 l1 CCCP B 1945 rDAY M l1H l1Crp bI 6eceA)'1oT 11 3aKypl1Ba loT. E e Bl1H BhlHMMaeT CTl1AhHhlM AoporoM IlopTcMrap, Ha KOTOPOM BhlrpaBl1pOBaHa HaAITl1Ch: « AoporoMy E e Bl1HY OT Immediately after one of the new vassal states' "liberation," a Soviet newsreel was shown. Pictured on the screen was a meeting between Stalin and Benes3 Just as Stalin is walking to Benes with his hand extended, a voice from the audience calls out: -Gimme your watch.4 At a conference of the Big Four in 1945, the British, American, French, and Soviet foreign ministers started smoking during one of their discussions. Bevin pulls out a stylish, expensivelooking cigarette case upon which is embossed: "To Our Dear Bevin, from 2 The war left a profound gender imbalance in the USSR that was most visible in the countryside, where many villages were left without young men. Women wanting children are said to have agreed to the most temporary of liaisons in the hope of getting pregnant. A particularly grim variant notes that "there is a story current ... that all a girl has to do if she wants a man is to lie down on the main highway and stretch out her legs and hold up a liter of vodka in her arms." HPSSS, no. l33, schedule A, vol. 10, 26. 3 Eduard Benes (1884-1948), Czechoslovakian president, 1935-38, 1946-48. 4 The reference is to Soviet troops' marauding and plunder during their postwar occupation of Eastern Europe. [18.218.61.16] Project MUSE (2024-04-19...

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