We will bury you

For other uses, see We will bury you (disambiguation).

Nikita Khrushchev (1961)

"We will bury you!" (Russian: «Мы вас похороним!», translit. "My vas pokhoronim!") is a phrase that was used by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev while addressing Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow on November 18, 1956.^[1]^[2]^[3] The phrase was originally translated into English by Khrushchev's personal interpreter Viktor Sukhodrev.^[4]

History

While addressing Westerners at the embassy on November 18, 1956, in the presence of Polish Communist statesman Władysław Gomułka, Khrushchev said: "About the capitalist states, it doesn't depend on you whether or not we exist. If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations, and don't invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!"^[5] The rant prompted the envoys from twelve NATO nations and Israel to leave the room.^[5]

In his subsequent public speech Khrushchev declared: "[...] We must take a shovel and dig a deep grave, and bury colonialism as deep as we can".^[6] In a 1961 speech at the Institute of Marxism–Leninism in Moscow, Khrushchev said, that "peaceful coexistence" for the USSR means "intense, economic, political and ideological struggle between the proletariat and the aggressive forces of imperialism in the world arena".^[7] Later, on August 24, 1963, Khrushchev remarked in his speech in Yugoslavia, "I once said, 'We will bury you,' and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you,"^[8] a reference to the Marxist saying, "The proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism", based on the concluding statement in Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto: "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." Khrushchev also expressed this Marxist thesis at a meeting with journalists in the US in September 1959. Many Americans interpreted the quote as a nuclear threat.^[9]

Some authors suggest that an alternative translation is "We shall be present at your funeral" or "We shall outlive you".^[10]^[11]^[12] Authors have suggested the phrase, in conjunction with Khrushchev's overhead hand clasp gesture meant that Russia would take care of the funeral arrangements for capitalism after its demise.^[13]

Khrushchev was known for his emotional public image. His daughter admitted that "he was known for strong language, interrupting speakers, banging his fists on the table in protest, pounding his feet, even whistling".^[7] She called such behavior a "manner, which suited his goal... to be different from the hypocrites of the West, with their appropriate words but calculated deeds".^[7] Mikhail Gorbachev suggested in his book Perestroika and New Thinking for our Country and the World that the image used by Khrushchev was inspired by the acute discussions among Soviet agrarian scientists in the 1930s, nicknamed "who will bury whom", the bitterness of which must be understood in the political context of the times.

In culture

Khrushchev's phrase was used as the title of Jan Šejna's book on communist Cold War strategies and of a comics book. The phrase also appears in Sting's song "Russians". The quote, paraphrased as "We will bury them!", was used as a taunt in the video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2,^[14] in which the Soviet Union wages World War III against the Western Allies.

References

↑ "We Will Bury You!", Time Magazine, November 26, 1956
↑ "Khrushchev Tirade Again Irks Envoys", The New York Times, Nov. 19, 1956, p. 1.
↑ The quote, cited on Bartleby.com and QuotationsPage.com.
↑ Умер личный переводчик Хрущева и Брежнева Виктор Суходрев (in Russian). Komsomolskaya Pravda. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
1 2 "Envoys Stalk Again As Nikita Rants". The Milwaukee Sentinel. Nov 19, 1956. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
↑ Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, Sergeĭ Khrushchev, George Shriver, Stephen Shenfield. Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev: Statesman, 1953-1964, Penn State Press, 2007, p. 893
1 2 3 Dr. Stuart J. Birkby. "'We will bury you' How Mistranslation Heightened Cold War Tensions" (PDF). Galaxy. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
↑ Nikita Khrushchev on QuotationsPage.com
↑ James Stuart Olson, Historical dictionary of the 1950s, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000, p. 157
↑ Moshe Lewin, The Soviet Century
↑ Bill Swainson, The Encarta Book of Quotations
↑ Robert Legvold, Russian Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century and the Shadow of the Past
↑ Morton Deutsch, Peter T. Coleman, Eric C. Marcus, eds. (2011), "Culture and Conflict", The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, Wiley, p. 630, ISBN 9781118046906
↑ "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 - Yuri's Revenge". GameFAQs. Retrieved 18 November 2016.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Nikita Khrushchev

Cold War

USA USSR ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact

1940s	Hukbalahap Rebellion Dekemvriana Yalta Conference Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Forest Brothers Operation Priboi Operation Jungle Occupation of the Baltic states Cursed Soldiers Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito–Stalin Split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War (Second round) Malayan Emergency Albanian Subversion

1950s	Bamboo Curtain Korean War 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit (1955) Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis Syrian Crisis of 1957 Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Bandung Conference Bricker Amendment McCarthyism Operation Gladio Iraqi July Revolution "We will bury you"

1960s	Congo Crisis Sino-Soviet split 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Soviet–Albanian split Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War Angolan War of Independence Guinea-Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence Cuban Missile Crisis Sino-Indian War Communist insurgency in Sarawak Iraqi Ramadan Revolution 1963 Syrian coup d'état Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965–66) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967–74 USS Pueblo incident Six-Day War War of Attrition Cultural Revolution Prague Spring Communist insurgency in Malaysia Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution Goulash Communism Sino-Soviet border conflict CPP-NPA-NDF rebellion Corrective Move

1970s	Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan Corrective Movement (Syria) Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping-pong diplomacy 1971 Turkish military memorandum Corrective Revolution (Egypt) Four Power Agreement on Berlin Bangladesh Liberation War 1972 Nixon visit to China North Yemen-South Yemen Border Conflict 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Carnation Revolution Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino-Albanian split Cambodian–Vietnamese War Sino-Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Dirty War Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Saur Revolution New Jewel Movement 1979 Herat uprising Seven Days to the River Rhine Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union

1980s	Soviet–Afghan War 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts 1980 Turkish coup d'état Invasion of Grenada 1986 Black Sea incident 1988 Black Sea bumping incident Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars People Power Revolution Nagorno-Karabakh War Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Revolutions of 1989 Glasnost Perestroika

1990s	Mongolian Revolution of 1990 Yemeni unification Fall of Communism in Albania Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Frozen conflicts	Abkhazia China Korea Nagorno-Karabakh South Ossetia Transnistria Sino-Indian border dispute

Foreign policy	Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Hallstein Doctrine Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War

Ideologies	Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply-side economics Thatcherism Communism Marxism–Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Maoism Naxalism Stalinism Titoism Liberal democracy Social democracy

Organizations	ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB Non-Aligned Movement SAARC Safari Club MI6 Stasi

Propaganda	Active measures Izvestia Pravda Crusade for Freedom Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia

Races	Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race

See also	Brinkmanship NATO–Russia relations Soviet espionage in the United States Russian espionage in the United States American espionage in the Soviet Union Soviet Union–United States relations US–Soviet summits Cold War II

Category Portal Timeline List of conflicts

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.

We will bury you

History

In culture

See also

References