Polish anti-communist joke: socialism takes the name
joke · Soviet/Eastern European ·
retold in 5 talks
Socialism, as the synthesis of all human achievements, took: barbarism from primitive societies, slavery from antiquity, domination from the Middle Ages, exploitation from capitalism, and from socialism it took the name. Illustrates how identity functions as a void: only the signifier remains.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 5
“From socialism it took the name.”
“From pre-class society it took primitivism... from socialism it took the name.”
“From socialism it took the name.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Igor Bavčar1Lana Wachowski (Larry Wachowski)1Thor Heyerdahl1Subcomandante Marcos1Jonathan Coe1Woody Allen3Philippe Pétain1Élisabeth Roudinesco1
alongside works
Jaws4Life magazine (fabricated issue, 1946)1Wonderful Life (Stephen Jay Gould)1The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Oliver Sacks)1Les Mots et les choses / The Order of Things (Michel Foucault)1La Mésentente / Disagreement (Jacques Rancière)1The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)1Idioterne / The Idiots (Lars von Trier, 1998)1
Every retelling 5
Socialism, as the synthesis of all human achievements, took: barbarism from primitive societies, slavery from antiquity, domination from the Middle Ages, exploitation from capitalism, and from socialism it took the name. Illustrates how identity functions as a void: only the signifier remains., illustrating identity as a hole,oppositional determination,signifier falls into the signified
A Polish joke mocks the communist claim that socialism synthesises all historical achievements: from primitive society it took primitivism, from antiquity slavery, from feudalism domination, from capitalism exploitation, and from socialism it took the name., illustrating master signifier,anti-Semitism analogy,ideology of communism
Socialism is described as synthesising the greatest human achievements: primitive brutality from primitives, slavery from antiquity, domination from feudalism, exploitation from capitalism, and from socialism itself, only the name., illustrating master signifier,empty signifier,ideology,communism-socialism
Socialism is a synthesis of all humanity's greatest achievements: from prehistory it took primitivism, from antiquity slavery, from medievalism domination, from capitalism exploitation, and from socialism it took the name., illustrating the mysterious X of antisemitism,ideology,empty signifier
Our Polish socialism is the synthesis of all human history: it took barbarian primitivism from pre-class society, slavery from antiquity, brutal domination from the Middle Ages, exploitation from capitalism, and from socialism, it took the name., illustrating zero signifier,signifier falls into the signified,ideology