The Red Monarch is … a very funny book. Certain givens have been attributed to dissenting Soviet humor. First: that it must be, by chemistry, satiric. Second: (the direct corollary of Given #1) that it must be risky: therefore (sub-corollary) at least half-serious in intent. A monolith like Stalin attracts satire because any decent monolith will ascribe all truth to itself. But humor can't stand absolute truth: it revels in difference and not just the difference of dialectic. It has a Panurgic spirit. Every part of the Hegelian formula—thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and around again—is subject to its corrupting influence. Given #3: that, underpinning Soviet satire, there will be some kind of self-mockery: a bitterness or at least a dull resignation: Our government is ludicrous but still we put up with it and that's not so amusing. You can sense this uneasiness throughout Gulag. Every Russian satirist his own butt...