"The Internationale" is an international anthem that has been adopted as the anthem of various anarchist, communist, socialist, and social democratic movements.World Book Encyclopedia, 2018 ed., s.v. "Internationale, The" It has been a standard of the socialist movement since the late nineteenth century, when the Second International adopted it as its official anthem. The title arises from the "First International", an alliance of workers, which held a congress in 1864. The author of the anthem's lyrics, Eugène Pottier, a member of the French branch of the organisation, attended this congress. Pottier's text was later set to an original melody composed by Pierre De Geyter, a member of the Parti ouvrier français (French Workers Party) in Lille in industrial northern France.
Lyrics The song in its original French version was written in June 1871 by Eugène Pottier, a member of the First International and Paris Commune, after the Commune had been crushed by the French army on 28 May but before Pottier fled first to Britain and then later (1873–1881) to the United States. Pottier intended it to be sung to the tune of "La Marseillaise".Pottier, Eugène (1887). Chants révolutionnaires (Revolutionary Songs) (1st ed.). Paris: Allemane. pp. 13–16. The song was reputedly sung to the Marseillaise at Pottier's burial in November 1887.Museux, Ernest (1898) Les défenseurs du proletariat: Eugène Pottier. BNF Gallica: Only the following year, the melody to which The Internationale is usually sung was composed by Pierre De Geyter for the choir "La Lyre des Travailleurs" of the French Workers' Party in his hometown of Lille, and first performed there in July 1888. De Geyter had been commissioned by Gustave Delory the future mayor of Lille, who had received the text from a young socialist teacher, Charles Gros.
Pottier wrote an earlier version of the song in September 1870, to celebrate the Third Republic declared after the defeat of the Second French Empire by Prussia and the abdication of Napoleon III, and to honour the First International; this version was reprinted in 1988, the centennial of Degeyter's musical setting, by the historian of Commune song, Robert Brécy.Robert Brécy, Florilège de la Chanson Révolutionnaire, De 1789 au Front Populaire, Éditions Ouvrières, Paris, 1990, page 137. Contemporary editions published by Boldoduc (Lille) in 1888, by Delory in 1894, and by Lagrange in 1898 are no longer locatable, but the text that endures is the one authorised by Pottier for his Chants Révolutionnaires, published by his Communard colleague Jean Allemane in April 1887, before Pottier's death in November, and reprinted in Pottier's Collected Works. This version, along with a facsimile reprint of De Geyter's score and translations into English and other languages, also appears in the only English-language selection of Pottier's works, edited by Loren Kruger.
Pottier's lyrics contain one-liners that became very popular and found widespread use as slogans; other lines such as "Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun" ("Neither God, nor Caesar, nor tribune") were already well known in the workers' movement. The success of the song is connected to the stability and widespread popularity of the Second International. Like the lyrics, the music by De Geyter was relatively simple and down to earth, suitable for a workers' audience.
French original 1887 versionLiteral translationDebout, les damnés de la terre Debout, les forçats de la faim La raison tonne en son cratère C'est l'éruption de la fin Du passé faisons table rase Foule esclave, debout, debout Le monde va changer de base Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout
𝄆 C'est la lutte finale Groupons-nous, et demain L'Internationale Sera le genre humain. 𝄇
Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes Décrétons le salut commun Pour que le voleur rende gorge Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge Battons le fer quand il est chaud.
L'État opprime et la loi triche L'impôt saigne le malheureux Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux C'est assez, languir en tutelle L'égalité veut d'autres lois Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle Égaux, pas de devoirs sans droits.
Hideux dans leur apothéose Les rois de la mine et du rail Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose Que dévaliser le travail ? Dans les coffres-forts de la bande Ce qu'il a créé s'est fondu En décrétant qu'on le lui rende Le peuple ne veut que son dû.
Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans Appliquons la grève aux armées Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales À faire de nous des héros Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles Sont pour nos propres généraux.
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes Le grand parti des travailleurs La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes L'oisif ira loger ailleurs Combien de nos chairs se repaissent Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours Un de ces matins disparaissent Le soleil brillera toujours.Arise, wretched of the earth Arise, convicts of hunger Reason thunders in its crater This is the eruption of the end Of the past let us wipe the slate clean Slave masses, arise, arise The world is about to change its foundation We are nothing, let us be everything
𝄆 This is the final struggle Let us gather together, and tomorrow The Internationale Will be the human kind. 𝄇
There are no supreme saviors Neither God, nor Caesar, nor tribune. Producers, let us save ourselves, Decree on the common welfare That the thief return his plunder, That the spirit be pulled from its prison Let us fan the forge ourselves Strike the iron while it is hot
The state represses and the law cheats The tax bleeds the unfortunate No duty is imposed on the rich "Rights of the poor" is a hollow phrase Enough languishing in custody Equality wants other laws: No rights without obligations, it says, And as well, no obligations without rights
Hideous in their self-deification Kings of the mine and rail Have they ever done anything other Than steal work? Into the coffers of that lot, What work creates has melted In demanding that they give it back The people wants only its due.
The kings intoxicate us with gunsmoke, Peace among ourselves, war to the tyrants! Let the armies go on strike, Guns in the air, and break ranks If these cannibals insist In making heroes of us, Soon they will know our bullets Are for our own generals
Laborers, peasants, we are The great party of workers The earth belongs only to men The idle will go reside elsewhere How much of our flesh they feed on, But if the ravens and vultures Disappear one of these days The sun will shine always
Authorship and copyright In a successful attempt to save Pierre De Geyter's job as a woodcarver, the 6,000 leaflets printed by Lille printer Boldoduc only mentioned the French version of his family name (Degeyter). The second edition published by Delory named Pierre's brother Adolphe as the composer. With neither money nor representation, Pierre De Geyter lost his first lawsuit over this in 1914 and did not gain legal recognition of authorship until 1922 when he was 74. His brother had in the meantime died by suicide in 1916, leaving a note to Pierre explaining the fraud and stating that Delory had manipulated him into claiming authorship; and Delory had inscribed on Adolphe's tombstone "Ici repose Adolphe Degeyter, l'auteur de L'Internationale" ("Here lies Adolphe De Geyter, the authour of The Internationale". Despite this dying declaration, historians in the 1960s such as Daniel Ligou were still contending that Adolphe was the author.
In 1972 "Montana Edition", owned by Hans R. Beierlein, bought the rights to the song for 5,000 Deutschmark, first for the territory of West Germany, then in East Germany, then worldwide. According to Beierlein, East Germany paid Montana Edition 20,000 DM every year for its rights to play the music."Ich habe die Kommunisten bezahlen Lassen", Die Welt, Hans R. Beierlein, 18 April 2014. Pierre De Geyter died in 1932, causing the copyrights to expire in 2002. Luckhardt's German text is the public domain since 1984.
As "The Internationale" music was published before 1 July 1909 outside the United States, it is in the public domain in the United States. As of 2013, Pierre De Geyter's music is also in the public domain in countries and areas whose copyright durations are authors' lifetime plus 80 years or less.Year 1932 when Pierre De Geyter died, plus 80 years, would get to the year 2012. Due to France's wartime copyright extensions (prorogations de Guerre), SACEM claimed that the music was still copyrighted in France until October 2014. The "Internationale" is now also in the public domain within France.
As Eugène Pottier died in 1887, his original French lyrics are in the public domain. Gustave Delory once acquired the copyright of his lyrics through the songwriter Jean-Baptiste Clement having bought it from Pottier's widow.
Translations There have been a very wide variety of translations of the anthem. In 2002, Kuznar noted that the nature of these translations has varied widely. Many have been closely literal translations with variations solely to account for rhyme and meter but others have been done to encode different ideology perspectives and or to update contents to adapt the lyrics to relevant more contemporary issues.Kuzar, R. (2002). Translating the Internationale: Unity and dissent in the encoding of proletarian solidarity. Journal of pragmatics, 34(2), 87-109.
The first English version has been attributed to the author Eugène Pottier himself, produced apparently after he fled the fall of the Paris Commune in June 1871 for temporary exile in Britain (until 1873, when he went on to the United States). The first US translation was by Charles Hope Kerr who heard it in De Geyter's setting in Lille in 1894 and published it as a pamphlet that year. It was later reproduced in Songs of the IWW, first published in 1909 and has been reprinted by Kerr's publishing house into the 21st century.
The first of many Italian versions signed by E. Bergeret, identified as Ettore Marroni, in 1901. The Dutch communist poet Henriette Roland Holst translated it into Dutch, with "Ontwaakt, verworpenen der aarde" ('Wake up, all who are cast away') at about the same time. By the time of the 1910 International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen, versions had appeared in 18 different languages, including a Danish one by A. C. Meyer, which was sung at the end of a cantata by 500 singers.
Russian version used in the Soviet Union The Russian version was initially translated by Arkady Kots in 1902 and printed in London in Zhizn, a Russian émigré magazine. The first Russian version had only three stanzas, based on stanzas 1, 2, and 6 of the original, and the refrain. After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the text was slightly re-worded to get rid of "now useless" future tenses – particularly the refrain was reworded (the future tense was replaced by the present, and the first person plural possessive pronoun was introduced). In 1918 the chief editor of Izvestia, Yuri Steklov, appealed to Russian writers to translate the other three stanzas, which did eventually happen.
The Russian Internationale has been translated into many indigenous languages of Russia, including Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Chukchi, Udmurt and Yakut.
Russian originalRussian Cyrillic alphabetPre-Revolution Russian CyrillicRussian Latin alphabetEnglish TranslationВставай, проклятьем заклеймённый, Весь мир голодных и рабов! Кипит наш разум возмущённый И в смертный бой вести готов. Весь мир насилья мы разрушим До основанья, а затем Мы наш, мы новый мир построим, – Кто был ничем, тот станет всем.
𝄆 Это есть наш последний И решительный бой; С Интернационалом Воспрянет род людской! 𝄇
Никто не даст нам избавленья: Ни бог, ни царь и не герой! Добьёмся мы освобожденья Своею собственной рукой. Чтоб свергнуть гнёт рукой умелой,