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Alexander Kozintsev
War Propaganda and Humour: World War II
German, British, and Soviet Cartoons
Introduction
This article deals with transformations humour undergoes in wartime. The context
of war is especially relevant to the general theory of humour because it maximises
the contrast between humour, on the one hand, and hostility, scorn, sarcasm,
and satire, on the other. As the debates around the Muhammad cartoons affair
demonstrate, the community of humour scholars is deeply divided on this issue.
Some believe that humour can be a powerful weapon (Kuipers 2008; Lewis 2008;
Martin 2008) whereas others argue that humour as such is but play and has little
effect as a means of propaganda (Davies 2008; Oring 2008; Raskin 2008). Clearly,
the debate is to some extent terminological as it hinges on the distinction between
humour and satire. What then is the distinction? The simplest and the most naive
solution is to claim that humour remains humour only insofar as it does not offend
anyone. With this approach, of course, the present article would be oxymoronic
and devoid of object. Relaxing the approach somewhat, we might ask: “Can
humour survive in an atmosphere of hate? If it can, under what conditions? Why
and when do people ridicule an enemy they seek to destroy?”
We can speak of three basic forms of war propaganda: invective, satire, and
humour. At first sight, they are arranged along a continuum in the decreasing order
of hostility, so that invective and humour are polar opposites and satire is inter¬
mediate. Invective is the principal form of propaganda in times of danger, when
the immediate task is to mobilise people against a powerful and cruel enemy. Hu¬
mour is a relaxation that people can afford in times of relative safety. At first sight,
invective and humour may appear similar because both are based on the idea that
the enemy violates certain norms. Invective accuses the enemy of violating moral
norms, whereas humour ridicules them for violating the norms of common sense.
A closer look, however, reveals the inadequacy of this static model. When
viewed dynamically, invective and humour are seen not merely as opposites but
as antagonists, which raises the question of whether they can coexist in harmony.
Elsewhere I have tried to show that satire is inherently contradictory (Kozintsev
2010: 22-24, 39, 64-65, 114-115). In this article, I will try to explore this issue
using war propaganda as an extreme example.
Works by eleven cartoonists from the WWII era will be discussed—four Soviet,
three of them working together under a single alias Kukryniksy (Mikhail Kupri¬