The film was produced during the political liberalization of the 1968 Prague Spring and contains many scenes which satirize and criticize the country's communist leadership.

Pavel, a friend who had pledged to help him, calls in the meeting for Jahn's expulsion from the college and the Communist Party, and Markéta joins the vote against him.

Jahn then undergoes six years of "reeducation", which are split between prison and army service in a technical auxiliary battalion under a sadistic drill sergeant.

While in the army, Alexej, a true believer in communism, appeals to higher authorities against their treatment; when the man is consequently expelled from the Party, he commits suicide.

The Joke was released in 1969, some months after the August 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia had put an end to the freedoms of the Prague Spring.

[2] Cineaste stated that The Joke was "a modest, quiet film" that was "permeated with irony", though its ironic juxtapositions were occasionally heavy-handed, such as cutting between a group singing the revolutionary song "No More Masters" and Jahn and other prisoners breaking rocks in a quarry.