The Internationale

Arise ye workers from your slumbers

Arise ye prisoners of want

For reason in revolt now thunders

And at last ends the age of cant.

Away with all your superstitions

Servile masses arise, arise

We’ll change henceforth the old tradition

And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction

On tyrants only we’ll make war

The soldiers too will take strike action

They’ll break ranks and fight no more

And if those cannibals keep trying

To sacrifice us to their pride

They soon shall hear the bullets flying

We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.

So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Internationale unites the human race.

No saviour from on high delivers

No faith have we in prince or peer

Our own right hand the chains must shiver

Chains of hatred, greed and fear

E’er the thieves will out with their booty

And give to all a happier lot.

Each at the forge must do their duty

And we’ll strike while the iron is hot.

So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Internationale unites the human race.

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  1. The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.

    It is sung traditionally with the hand raised in a clenched fist salute.

  2. This is the way it was translated in my great-grandfather’s circa 1915 Chicago Socialist Party songbook, the way I grew up knowing it:

    Arise o slaves who know starvation

    Arise o humble of the earth

    Our reason thunders indignation

    From the old we’ll bring new birth

    We’ll tear down this planet’s false foundation

    And build a better world anew

    And we that live in humble station

    Shall walk erect as is our due

    Through the conflict comes power

    Each one lift high your face

    And in the end The Internationale

    Becomes the human race.

    My sig line is a direct translation of a couple lines of The Internationale from the original French.

  3. http://folk.ntnu.no/makarov/te

  4. For instance, how the song was created in 1871, right after the fall of the Paris Commune. And mention how many different versions there are.

  5. … and you can march to it.

    When I post things, I find myself using more and more Marxist terminology.  So much of the concepts we take for granted have their origins in that.  People are, I think, embarrassed to use it, since commies are so unhip.

    This embarrassment hinders us from discussing capitalism and class in any systemic way.

    But consider this.  You can walk around with a Che Guevara t-shirt on, but you can’t walk around with an Adolf Hitler t-shirt.  There are deeper currents than those espoused by pathetic liberalism.

  6. when the Democrats and the Big Dog started deregulating privatizing, NAFTizing, and declaring us the new Super Power, and calling it inevitable and global that the workers would have to do it again globally. The Internationale unites the human race, now more then ever or the same as it always has.    

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