Laughing at communism

Ronald Reagan once quipped that a communist is someone who reads Marx and Lenin, while an anti-communist is someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

Sadly, the truth is that many young people today neither read about nor understand communism — or its ignoble record of spawning brutal dictators like Joseph Stalin.

According to a recent US survey, Millennials have the least negative attitudes towards communism and even struggle to correctly define it. Younger people are also more likely to underestimate the number of victims of communist regimes.

And in a 2016 UK survey, 11% of young people failed to associate Joseph Stalin with crimes against humanity, while 28% had not even heard of him.

This ignorance reflects the lasting legacy of western apologists for communism. As Martin Amis notes in his book, Koba the Dread, western intellectuals used to blithely joke about communists — like using the term ‘comrade’ — indicating their reluctance to confront the truth of Soviet totalitarianism.

Is it too late to atone for this shameful legacy of denial? A recent viewing of Armando Iannucci’s film, The Death of Stalin, convinced me that, in fact, it is never too late. Popular entertainment can be a powerful educational tool.

The Death of Stalin is a black satire that recounts the internal power struggles in Soviet Russia following Stalin’s death in 1953. However, the film unfolds through a bizarre mix of slapstick comedy and highly crude humour.

Importantly, the film depicts Stalin’s regime as totalitarian and barbaric. But it also delightfully parodies Stalin’s cronies, who spout brainwashed and patently absurd platitudes about communism, while surreptitiously plotting their own rise to power.

Following in the footsteps of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, the film suggests that we should condemn evil regimes by laughing at them — at least, from the safe distance of time.

Following release in 2017, The Death of Stalin has demonstrated remarkable staying power in cinemas. It has all the ingredients to appeal to a younger demographic — clever parody, witty one-liners and thoroughly offensive jokes.

And helpfully, Russia has provided free publicity by banning the film.

But if it succeeds in teaching Millennials some hard facts about communism — more effectively than a multi-volume history book — it shows that even crude humour can serve a worthy purpose.