While addressing the Western states at the embassy on November 18, 1956, in the presence of communist Polish politician Władysław Gomułka (with Poland being a Soviet satellite state at the time), Nikita 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!"[4][5] The speech prompted the envoys from twelve NATO nations and Israel to leave the room.[4][5][6]
During Khrushchev's visit to the United States in 1959, the Los Angeles mayor Norris Poulson in his address to Khrushchev stated: "We do not agree with your widely quoted phrase 'We shall bury you.' You shall not bury us and we shall not bury you. We are happy with our way of life. We recognize its shortcomings and are always trying to improve it. But if challenged, we shall fight to the death to preserve it".[7] Many Americans meanwhile interpreted Khrushchev's quote as a nuclear threat.[8]
In another public speech Khrushchev declared: "We must take a shovel and dig a deep grave, and bury colonialism as deep as we can".[9] In a 1961 speech at the Institute of Marxism–Leninism in Moscow, Khrushchev said that "peaceful coexistence" for the Soviet Union means "intense, economic, political and ideological struggle between the proletariat and the aggressive forces of imperialism in the world arena".[10] 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,"[11] a reference to the Marxist saying, "The proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism" (in the Russian translation of Marx, the word "undertaker" is translated as a "grave digger", Russian: могильщик,) 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". In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that "enemy propaganda picked up the slogan and blew it all out of proportion".[12]
Some authors suggest that an alternative translation is "We shall be present at your funeral".[13][14][15][16] 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.[17]
