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Comment by pdimitar | Hacker News Reader

One of the very few books that literally had me rolling on the floor laughing -- not exaggerating for effect here, I have in fact fell from the sofa on the floor and started laughing until I wheezed and couldn't breathe. Especially the segment with the military preacher whom Švejk was an assistant of -- and when he had to get him home after he got dead-drunk. My gods, I can almost remember how much my tummy hurt back then!

That being said, all the stuff about censorship and getting arrested for "treason" (basically for a political joke at the bar) hit too close to home for me, and I am from a former Soviet block country, and I found those pieces very depressing. Still, I went through all books -- several times -- and enjoyed them a lot. The author really captured a lot of absurdities very well.

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> all the stuff about censorship and getting arrested for "treason" (basically for a political joke at the bar) hit too close to home for me, and I am from a former Soviet block country, and I found those pieces very depressing.

You may probably find it curious that Hashek ended up being a bolshevik and a red army commissar.

I would never endorse this but I also kind of understand: it's very easy to switch sides when you're seeing your own government face-plant all the time and never get anything meaningful done. That's one of the ways the ruling class wins: a new "promising" system gets promoted, it points at the mistakes of the current system and the people, tired of all the crap, end up voting for the new stuff, only to discover it's even worse... :(

That has happened quite a lot in history, sadly (also I am aware that in the case of the USSR there was no voting involved, it was just a figure of speech).

In case of USSR the people were choosing sides of the civil war and fighting voluntarily - a more serious commitment than simply casting a ballot.

Most of the people were not involved in fight. They were busy growing food for example. But sure the ones that actually fought did choose their sides voluntarily. Sometimes they flipped.

In vast many cases they were either forcefully conscripted by whomever was holding power in the particular area, or were simply choosing to enter armies because they were very young people who lost everything and did not have many options. Do not also discount that during the post-revolution civil war, food shortages were the norm, and the place to eat is army.

I mean that the side winning a civil war probably needs to have a sufficient degree of public support. If enough people went as far as fighting voluntarily, then there was also a significant number who supported this side more passively.

I am not a historian, but I think the society turned this way, in a sense. It's not like some external force coerced them, when everyone was against it.

Hashek is an example. He was not forcefully conscripted, it was his choice.

I've just recently listened to Kerensky's interview (the chairman of the Provisional Government that was ousted by the October Revolution in 1917). He was unable to gather any forces, no-one defended him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA225DBywU4&t=4842s (the interview is in Russian)

If it was anything like the Spanish Civil War, lots of people just happened to live in an area that was controlled by one or another side. Those who were committed to their cause probably did their best to escape or take arms. Most were simply recruited and complied to avoid further trouble. Both my grandfathers happened to live on the side they disagreed with when hostilities started, so they had no choice.

It's unfortunate but it's often the case when someone talks about a given ideal such as being critical of censorship, authoritarianism, etc. They often mean:

"I don't like THAT censorship. Mine is fine."

He did a stint with the Bolsheviks, but abandoned them eventually - and this was before writing "Švejk", so that might have well factored into the latter.

"...had me rolling on the floor laughing..."

Same here, I was in tears I was laughing that much. I found it funny because I recognized those silly maddening situations from my own life. We all experience them but it takes a master like Hašek to remind us about how absurd they really are.

That being said, all the stuff about censorship and getting arrested for "treason" (basically for a political joke at the bar)

I think you didn't get it right. The joke is that they go out of their way to not say anything offensive, knowing that the situation is tense, but they get arrested anyway.

Strange that you're saying this because that's exactly how I understood it: people were extremely mindful of what they're saying but even with that you had "agents" in disguise who really stretched the definition of "treason", many times over, just to be able to do a few arrests daily. In the books it was also shown that the mere fact of singing along a song that praised their emperor was also grounds for being arrested (which was quite absurd because praising that guy was a requirement anyway).

The book starts with the event that lead to the war getting announced. It's the pre war paranoia, not state censorship.

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