weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) (07/27/88)
>These are the same people that in the Sputnik era (not that long ago to >me, anyway) promised (not threatened, mind you, *promised*) to bury us. Like or dislike the Soviets as you think proper, but don't keep citing this famous line incorrectly. "We will bury you" is Russian idiom that meant nothing more than the trivial assertion "we will live longer than you". "Bury" here has the sense of "be in attendance at your funeral", and not the "go out of our way to put you six feet under" interpretation. And in case you think the sentence is possibly ambiguous, it most certain- ly wasn't so in context. Funny how Krushchev's full speech with this line is so rarely printed--it was just simple Marxism about how the capitalist system is going to self-destruct, the socialist system is going to endure, and all that rot. ucbvax!garnet!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720