In Soviet Russia, topic describes YOU!! A type of joke, commonly called a Russian Reversal (but technically called the transpositional pun), popularized by Ukranian comedian Yakov Smirnof. It is based on taking a statement about capitalist America and inverting it to describe the then-Communist Russia as an Orwellian hellhole. Smirnoff later added the prefix Soviet, to indicate the jokes were meant to target the past regime, as opposed to The New Russia. For instance: See also Glorious Mother Russia for the Hollywood Atlas version of Soviet Russia that inspired the jokes.