How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed is Croatian journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulić’s collective essays on her and other Eastern European women’s experiences under the communistic regimes of the 1980-90s. Drakulić highlights the lack of material items and extreme poverty levels that have become associated with the regime to starkly illustrate the lasting effects of communism on the mentality and individuality of women even after the regime has passed away from the region.