West Germany secretly recorded jokes from communist Eastern Germany. The reason was similar to that of the Grimm brothers when they collected folk tales (it grants a view into the mindset of the people that does not appear in academic circles). Now those jokes have been released:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0%2C1518%2C655123%2C00.html

"What would happen if the desert became communist? Nothing for a while, and then there would be a sand shortage."

Chernobyl, incidentally, wasn't an accident, another joke went. It was just a Soviet program to X-ray its population.

As we try to restrict more how people act, talk and think, it might be good to remember the last joke quoted in the article:

"There are people who tell jokes. There are people who collect jokes and tell jokes. And there are people who collect people who tell jokes."

Keep collectin’. Things will fall eventually and it won’t be pretty.