"The living will envy the dead."
— Nikita Khrushchev
January 1, 1970
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Added on April 10, 2026
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Politicians from Russia
General Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Politicians from Ukraine
Soviet premiers
Atheists from Russia
Original Language: English
Sources
No instance of this statement, allegedly in reference to nuclear war, has been found in Khrushchev's writings or documented remarks, as indicated in Respectfully Quoted : A Dictionary of Quotations (1989). Herman Kahn used "the survivors [will] envy the dead" in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War. In Russia the quote is usually attributed to the translation of Treasure Island by Nikolay Chukovsky: "А те из вас, кто останется в живых, позавидуют мертвым!" "Those of you who will be still alive wil
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev
No instance of this statement, allegedly in reference to nuclear war, has been found in Khrushchev's writings or documented remarks, as indicated in Respectfully Quoted : A Dictionary of Quotations (1989). Herman Kahn used "the survivors [will] envy the dead" in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War. In Russia the quote is usually attributed to the translation of Treasure Island by Nikolay Chukovsky: "А те из вас, кто останется в живых, позавидуют мертвым!" "Those of you who will be still alive wil