Of course, we shouldn't really laugh at Ilf and Petrof's books. Stalin let them be published and they do nothing but make fun of "former people" like priests.
I read these thirty some years ago in college and thought they were funny, but now I realize they were mocking classes the regime wanted to expropriate. They made the communists look like the honest good people.
If you think about it, that's true.
They poke fun at little thieves while the Communists were the big thieves. They make priests look greedy--this is theb communist propaganda at a time when thousands of priests are being murdered and Stalin is selling the art of the churches to Western collectors. Even our ambassador was buying it at cut-rate prices.
I think I read Little Golden Calf, but totally forget the plot. Twelve Chairs I remember better, but then there was also the movie, I think Mel Brooks.
That's food for thought about the class warfare angle - I was under the impression that the book was parodying everyone.
"Golden Calf" was a continuation - which you'd think would be hard to do since they killed Ostap at the end of "12 Chairs", but one scene sort of explains it by having Ostap adjusting the ascot around the scar on his neck. "Golden Calf" is this crummy old taxi they decide to rent in Ostap's search for an "underground millionaire". Ostap ends that book by converting all his money to gold and precious gems, getting robbed and beaten by the Hungarian border guards, and finally returning to rodina a changed man. Whenever I'm on a long train trip - Moscow to Irkutsk or somewhere, I remember Ostap on the train going to and fro because all the hotels are booked by komandirovochki.