How can you as an artist – or as a citizen – act when confronted with an obviously rigged election, where the possibility to question or critique is minimal and risk for repercussions is high? Activist art group Party of the Dead explores absurdism, satire and black humour in order to protest against Putinism and the war it has unleashed. In this paper we will focus on the Party’s performances in spring 2024, with the shared theme of deconstructing electoral propaganda connected to Russia’s presidential elections – from the start of the electoral campaign in January until the inauguration of the president in May. With this example of action in the situation when any protest activity seems ineffective (there’s no choice in the “election”, the result is known to everyone in advance etc.) we’ll try to analyse the specific dialectics of black humour and political despair: despair as the starting and final point, humour as the cure from despair and its reverse.