The Internationale
Written in French by Eugene Pottier, a woodworker from Lille, after the fall of the Paris Commune of 1871, and set to music by P. Degeyter in 1888. It was sung by Socialists and revolutionaries throughout the world, during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, in the Spanish Civil War in 1937, by the Polish Solidarity workers in 1980, and by the Chinese students at Tiananmen Square in 1989. It served as the national anthem of Russia 1917-1944.
 1895 litho by Theophile Steinlen
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Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye criminals of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
and at last ends the age of cant.
Now away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise!
We'll change forthwith the old conditions
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
CHORUS
So come comrades rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the human race. (repeat).
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.
We peasants, artisans and others,
Enrolled amongst the sons of toil
Let's claim the earth henceforth for brothers
Drive the indolent from the soil.
On our flesh for too long has fed the raven
We've too long been the vultures prey.
But now farewell to spirit craven
The dawn brings in a brighter day.
CHORUS
No saviour from on high delivers
No trust we have in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear.
Ere the thieves will out with their booty
And to all give a happier lot.
Each at his forge must do his duty
And strike the iron while its hot.
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