The collapse of the world's best political jokes.

DURING THE DAYS when there was limited freedom of conversation but no freedom of public utterance in Eastern Europe, the peoples of those countries wrapped up their true political views in jokes. Now that they can speak out freely an important part of their folklore is withering away. We should not, however, forget the jokes of those who suffered under socialism. They are a testimony to the strength of the human spirit and a witness to the evils of Communist rule.

A man was reading a motoring magazine in a cafe in Prague. Another man sat next to him and noticed that on the page he was reading there was a picture of a Rolls Royce and another of a Soviet Lada automobile.

"Which of those do you think is the better?" he asked the reader.

"Oh, the Lada every time."

"You can't know much about cars."

"I know all about cars," replied the reader. But I know nothing about you.

Three men in a Soviet labor camp were discussing why they were there.

"I got to work ten minutes late," said the first, 'so I was accused of sabotage."

"I got to work ten minutes early," said the second, "so I was accused of being a foreign spy.,,

"I got to work exactly on time," said the third, 'so I was accused of buying a Swiss watch on the black market."

The repression and unfreedom described in the jokes is not seen as a chance result of the quirks of Stalin and Stalinism. Lenin is now joining his successor in the trash can or the scrap yard.

An ex-inmate of the Gulag died and went to heaven. A few weeks after his arrival, he went on a bus tour around the different circles of hell. In the section reserved for the verY worst people in history he found Hittler standing in a stinking lake of boiling mud up to his nose. Next to him was Stalin in the same lake up to his waist.

The ex-prisoner was understandably angry and asked the devil taking them around, How come Hitler is in it up to his nose but Stalin is only in it up to his waist?"

"Ah," replied the devil, but you see, Stalin is standing on Lenin's shoulders."

A visiting lecturer was telling the students at a school what a kind man Lenin had been. 'One day," he said, Lenin was shaving with an old-fashioned razor out in the open air in his garden when a little boy came past and asked him what he was doing.

"'Can't you see, little boy?' said Lenin. I'm shaving myself.' Now doesn't that show what a kind man Lenin was?"

One of the students was puzzled. "I can't understand why that story shows that Lenin was a kind man," he said.

"Don't be so obtuse," said the lecturer. Lenin had a razor in his hand and could have cut the little boy's throat. But he didn't, so that shows what a kind man he was."

In the jokes there is an utter contempt for state ownership and central planning:

At the May Day parade in Mosthere was the usual long parade of missiles, tanks, armored cars, personnel carriers, and the like, and then right at the end an open truck with three middle-aged men in baggy suits.

"One of the senior Communists on the podium turned to the minister of defense and asked, "Who on earth are they?"

Ah," said the minister, 'they are economists from the central-planning bureau. You've no idea how much destructive capacity they possess."

A Soviet planner was boasting to a visiting businessman of the achievements of the Soviet economy. "By the year 2000," he bragged, half the people of Moscow will have their own Private airplanes."

"But," queried the visitor, "whY should anyone need one?"

"It's simple," retorted the planner.

"Supposing your neighbor tells you that potatoes are on sale in Leningrad. You'll be able to get there before anyone else does."

For Eastern Europeans there was one other theme that will soon be nothing more than a bad memorythe ruthless exploitation of the satellite countries by the Soviet Union:

Under the new Soviet-Hungarian treaty on the navigation of the Danube, the Russians are allowed to navigate the river lengthwise and the Hungarians crosswise.

Intourist poster: VISIT THE SOVIET UNION BEFORE THE SOVIET UNION VISITS YOU.

Despite the astounding changes in Eastern Europe the Soviet Union is still unfree. Nonetheless, the struggle for independence has began. So long as this struggle continues there will be little need to hide politics in jokes. On the contrary, if you see the Russians laughing it could be a sign of disaster.