Satire was not only allowed, but openly encouraged in Soviet Union - as long as it stuck to pre-determined bounds that were mostly pre-determined by the Party and could shift over time.

To give an example: almost from the start, the Soviets encouraged self-published newspapers ("stengazeta", or, literally, "a wall newspaper") produced by "worker correspondents" - people who worked at a factory to be read by the coworkers. A typical fare for the newspaper would include an article that would satirize some of the workers for their flaws, i.e. for drinking; sometimes it could hit the people pretty high up the command chain at the factory.

Something similar was going on in not-so-major newspapers, where volunteer and paid correspondents would produce critical articles; notably, Mikhail Bulgakov moonlighted as one such correspondent in 1920es, criticizing, among other things, petty thefts at the plant and poor sanitary conditions in specific public bath houses; among "A Young Doctor's Notes" the story "A Speckled Rash" is very similar to what would be one of the very well-developed satirical articles; something similar might have been published in one of the more high brow magazines, if not newspapers.

A number of specialized publications, most notably - "Krokodil", were set up specifically for the purpose of publishing satire.

This being said, while broad political satire was off limits, unless started from above (like it was during Stalin's purges), a lower level political intrigue settled through articles in print would not be unheard of; Soviet newspapers would often be published by multiple entities within Soviet system (i.e. "Gudok" the newspaper was published by the ministry of railroads, while "Moskovskij Komsomolets" the newspaper would be published by the territorial unit of Communist Party of Moscow), which meant that in practice newspaper editors would essentially be asked by "their boss" to publish a piece satirical of "the other boss" - and, quite often, the central party won't intervene.