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