Ben Lewis

What is 150 yards long and eats potatoes?
A Moscow queue waiting to buy meat.

A Romanian house wife pauses by the door, empty shopping basket in hand, suddenly confused. Now am I about to go shopping or have I just come back?

Gdansk Shipyard

Is it true that under communism people could order food by phone? -Yes, but the delivery was by TV.

We wish to perform William Tell in our school. Is that permitted? Yes but where are you going to get the apple from?

An elderly Ukrainian living in the United States decided to return to the USSR for permanent residence. Before leaving he promised a friend to write — with blue ink if everything was fine; with red ink if things were bad.
Some months after he left a letter arrived written in blue ink, praising everything and ending up with the remark: L would have written in red ink, but I cannot get any here.

‘Aktuelle Kamera’ East German News Sketches

Mao Tse-Tung sent the following telegram to Nikita Khrushchev: “HUNGER IN CHINA STOP PLEASE DEND FOODSTUFFS STOP.” Khrushchev responded to this with: “TIGHTEN BELTS STOP.’ The following day Mao Tse Tung sent the following telegram to Khrushchev: “PLEASE SEND BELTS STOP.”

Vladek is waiting in line for groceries. After five minutes the manager comes out and tells the queue that there’s no meat left. After ten minutes he tells them that they’ve run out of eggs. After half an hour they’re told that there are no more vegetables. After an hour they’re told that all the bread has gone. When Vladek gets into the store after two hours he’s told to go home because there’s no food left. He starts cursing and is immediately confronted by a secret police agent who says:
‘You know, a few years ago we would have shot people like you: now go home.’
Vladek goes home and tells his wife about how the store ran out of food.
‘And you know what?’ he said, ‘I was lucky, they also ran out of bullets!’

A Briton, a Frenchman and a Russian are viewing a painting of Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden. “Look at their reserve, their calm,” muses the Brit. “They must be British.”_“Nonsense,” the Frenchman disagrees. “They’re naked, and so beautiful. Clearly, they are French.”_“No way! They have no clothes and no shelter,” the Russian points out, “They have only an apple to eat, and they are being told they live in a paradise. Obviously, they are Russian.”