Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 1989 |
| AUTHOR: | Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (1894–1971) |
| QUOTATION: | Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Khrushchev later explained what he had meant in response to a question at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., September 16, 1959: “The expression I used was distorted, and on purpose, because what was meant was not the physical burial of any people but the question of the historical force of development. It is well known that at the present time no one social or economic system is dominant throughout the world, but that there are different systems, social systems in different countries. And those systems change. At one time the most widespread system of society in the world was feudalism. Then capitalism took its place…. We believe that Karl Marx, Engels and Lenin gave scientific proof of the fact that the system, the social system of socialism, would take the place of capitalism … that is why I said that looking at the matter from the historical point of view, socialism, communism, would take the place of capitalism and capitalism thereby would be, so to speak, buried.”—Transcript of Khrushchev’s address and subsequent question-and-answer session (simultaneous translation), The New York Times, September 17, 1959, p. 18, col. 8. |
| SUBJECTS: | Winning |