L’internationale
(Trad, lyrics modified and original tune by Steve Wallis)
The international song of the working class & original national anthem of the USSR
version 5, 25/5/2011
Arise ye starvlings from your slumbers!
Arise ye criminals of want!
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of can’t!
Hang on to some of your superstitions
Servile masses, arise, arise!
We’ll change forthwith the old conditions
And spurn the dust to win the prize!
Then comrades come rally
And the final fight let us face!
L’internationale unit la classe travailleurs et la classe petit bourgeois!
The Internationale unites the working and middle classes!
I have changed the song since the fourth version to reflect the fact that working class people need to unite with well-intentioned middle class people too, which I expressed by arguing that the song unites working and middle class people (in French and English). See the page for the fourth version for information about other changes to the lyrics from the original.
You can download a new version of the track (recorded on 26 May 2011), as a musical poem, in MP3 format. Click here.