the Internationale

{{Short description|Left-wing anthem}}

{{redirect|Internationale|the Billy Bragg album|The Internationale (album){{!}}The Internationale (album)|other uses}}

{{EngvarB|date=March 2022}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}}

{{Infobox anthem

| title = The Internationale

| alt_title = {{lang|fr|« L'Internationale »|italic=no}}

| image = L'Internationale.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = "L'Internationale", original French version

| prefix = International

| country = anarchists, anti-capitalists, anti-fascists, communists, socialists, democratic socialists, social democrats, and georgists

| author = Eugène Pottier

| lyrics_date = 1871

| composer = Pierre De Geyter

| music_date = 1888

| sound = Internationale orchestral arrangement.ogg

| sound_title = Instrumental rendition in A major}}

"The Internationale"{{efn|{{small|English:}} {{IPAc-en|ˌ|ɪ|n|t|ər|n|æ|ʃ|ə|ˈ|n|ɑː|l|,_|-|ˈ|n|æ|l}} {{respell|IN|tər|nash|ə|NA(H)L}}; {{langx|fr|L'Internationale}} {{IPA|fr|lɛ̃tɛʁnɑsjɔnal|}}.}} is an international anthem that has been adopted as the anthem of various anarchist, communist, socialist, democratic socialist, and social democratic movements.World Book Encyclopedia, 2018 ed., s.v. "Internationale, The"{{Cite web |title=The International Anarchist Congress, Amsterdam, 1907 |url=http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen/press/pamphlets/sla-5/sla-5.pdf |access-date=7 December 2018 |website=www.fdca.it}} 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 founded by Karl Marx and others, which held a congress in 1864. The author of the anthem's lyrics, Eugène Pottier, a member of the French branch of the organization, attended this congress.{{cite book|author=Nic Maclellan|title=Louise Michel: Rebel Lives|year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OiGMPBfoqN8C|publisher=Ocean Press|pages=7, 89|isbn=9781876175764}}{{cite web|author=Donny Gluckstein|author-link=Donny Gluckstein|title=Decyphering 'The Internationale'|url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/gluckstein/2008/xx/internationale.html}} 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

{{Wikisource|The Internationale}}

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.{{Cite book |last=Pottier |first=Eugène |title=Oeuvres Complètes |publisher=François Maspero |editor-last=Brochon |editor-first=Pierre |location=Paris |publication-date=1966 |pages=101 |trans-title=Complete Works}}{{Cite book |last=Pottier |first=Eugène |title=Beyond the Internationale: Revolutionary Writing by Eugene Pottier |publisher=Charles H. Kerr |year=2024 |isbn=9780882860329 |editor-last=Kruger |editor-first=Loren |location=Chicago |publication-date=2024 |pages=1–4}} Pottier intended it to be sung to the tune of "La Marseillaise".{{sfn|Goyens|2007|p=171}}{{sfn|Cull|2003|p=181}}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 Worker's Party in his hometown of Lille, and the first performed there in July 1888.{{sfn|Goyens|2007|p=171}}{{sfn|Fuld|2000|p=303}}{{sfn|Brécy|1991|p=245}}

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.{{sfn|Maugendre|1996|p=266}}{{sfn|Brécy|1991|p=245}}{{sfn|Brécy|1991|p=245}}

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 honor 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.{{Cite book |last1=Estager |first1=Jacques |title=L'Internationale: 1888-1988 |last2=Bossi |first2=Georges |publisher=Editions sociales |year=1988 |isbn=2209060680 |location=Paris |pages=53–54}}

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 authorized by Pottier for his [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k81559w.pdf 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.{{Cite book |last=Pottier |first=Eugène |title=Oeuvres Complètes de Eugène Pottier |publisher=François Maspero |editor-last=Brochon |editor-first=Pierrre |location=Paris |publication-date=1966 |pages=101–102 |trans-title=Complete 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.{{Cite book |last=Pottier |first=Eugène |title=Beyond the Internationale: Revolutionary Writing by Eugène Pottier |publisher=Charles H. Kerr |year=2024 |isbn=9780882860329 |editor-last=Kruger |editor-first=Loren |location=Chicago |pages=103–117}}

Pottiers'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.{{sfn|Gielkens|1999|pp=32—43}}

=French original=

class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"

!1887 version!!Literal translation

style="vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap;text-align:center;"

|Debout, 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

{{small|Refrain :}}

𝄆 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.

{{small|Refrain}}

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.

{{small|Refrain}}

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.

{{small|Refrain}}

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.

{{small|Refrain}}

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.

{{small|Refrain}}

|Arise, wretched of the earth

Arise, convicts of hunger

Reason thunders in its volcano

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

{{small|Chorus:}}

𝄆 This is the final struggle

Let us gather together, and tomorrow

The Internationale

Will be the human race. 𝄇

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

{{small|Chorus}}

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

{{small|Chorus}}

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.

{{small|Chorus}}

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

{{small|Chorus}}

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

{{small|Chorus}}

Translations

There have been a very wide variety of translations of the anthem. In 2002, Kuznar notes 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).{{cite web | url=https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/international.htm | title=Lyrics: The International }} The first U.S. 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.{{Cite web |title=Lyrics: The International |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/international.htm |access-date=2024-09-10 |website=www.marxists.org}}{{Cite book |title=The Big Red Songbook: 250+ IWW Songs |publisher=Charles H. Kerr |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-62963-129-5 |editor-last=Green |edition=Archie |location=Chicago |publication-date=2016 |pages=70–72}} The first of many Italian versions signed by E. Bergeret, identified as Ettore Marroni, in 1901.{{Cite web |title=Antiwar Songs (AWS): Eugène Pottier - L'Internationale |url=https://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?id=2003&lang=en#agg1933 |access-date=2024-09-10 |website=www.antiwarsongs.org |language=en}} 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.{{sfn|Gielkens|1999|pp=32—43}}

= 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.{{cite web|url=http://feb-web.ru/feb/litenc/encyclop/le4/le4-5401.htm|title=The International (in Russian)|publisher=Fundamental'naya Elektronnaya Biblioteka|editor=A. V. Lunacharskiy}}

The Russian Internationale has been translated into many indigenous languages of Russia, including Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Chukchi, Udmurt, and Yakut.

{{Infobox anthem

| title = {{lang|ru|Интернационал}}

| transcription = {{lang|ru-latn|italic=no|Internacional}}

| english_title = The Internationale

| image = Internationale - Russian, 1951.pdf

| image_size =

| alt =

| caption =

| prefix = Former national anthem

| type =

| country = the Russian SFSR

----

Former national anthem of the Soviet Union

| alt_title =

| en_alt_title =

| alt_title_2 =

| en_alt_title_2 =

| author = Arkady Kotz

| lyrics_date = 1902

| composer = Pierre De Geyter

| music_date = 1888

| published = 1902

| adopted = 1918 {{small|(Russian SFSR)}}
1922 {{small|(Soviet Union)}}

| until = 1922 {{small|(Russian SFSR)}}
1944 {{small|(Soviet Union)}}

| predecessor = Worker's Marseillaise

| successor = State Anthem of the Soviet Union

| sound = Internationale-ru.ogg

| sound_title = The Internationale, Russian}}

class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"

!Russian original

!Literal translation

style="white-space:nowrap;text-align:center;"

|

{|class="wikitable"

!Russian Cyrillic alphabet!!Russian Latin alphabet

style="valign:top;white-space:nowrap;text-align:center;"

|Вставай, 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.

{{small|Припев:}}

𝄆 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,

Отвоевать своё добро, –

Вздувайте горн и куйте смело,

Пока железо горячо!

{{small|Припев}}

Довольно кровь сосать, вампиры,

Тюрьмой, налогом, нищетой!

У вас {{snd}} вся власть, все блага мира,

А наше право {{snd}} звук пустой !

Мы жизнь построим по-иному –

И вот наш лозунг боевой:

Вся власть народу трудовому!

А дармоедов всех долой!

{{small|Припев}}

Презренны вы в своём богатстве,

Угля и стали короли!

Вы ваши троны, тунеядцы,

На наших спинах возвели.

Заводы, фабрики, палаты –

Всё нашим создано трудом.

Пора! Мы требуем возврата

Того, что взято грабежом.

{{small|Припев}}

Довольно королям в угоду

Дурманить нас в чаду войны!

Война тиранам! Мир Народу!

Бастуйте, армии сыны!

Когда ж тираны нас заставят

В бою геройски пасть за них –

Убийцы, в вас тогда направим

Мы жерла пушек боевых!

{{small|Припев}}

Лишь мы, работники всемирной

Великой армии труда,

Владеть землёй имеем право,

Но паразиты {{snd}} никогда!

И если гром великий грянет

Над сворой псов и палачей, –

Для нас всё так же солнце станет

Сиять огнём своих лучей.

{{small|Припев}}

|Vstavaj prokljatjem zaklejmjonnyj,

Vesj mir golodnyh i rabov!

Kipit naš razum vozmuščjonnyj

I v smertnyj boj vesti gotov.

Vesj mir nasilia my razrušim

Do osnovania, a zatem

My naš my novyj mir postroim,

Kto byl nikem tot stanet vsem!

{{small|Pripev:}}

𝄆 Eto jestj naš poslednij

I rešiteljnyj boj;

S Internacionalom

Vosprjanet rod ljudskoj! 𝄇

Nikto ne dast nam izbavlenia:

Ni bog, ni carj i ne geroj

Dobiomsja my osvoboždenia

Svojeju sobstvennoj rukoj.

Čtob svergnutj gnjot rukoj umeloj,

Otvojevatj svojo dobro, –

Vzduvajte gorn i kujte smelo,

Poka železo gorjačo!

{{small|Pripev}}

Dovoljno krovj sosatj, vampiry,

Tjurjmoj, nalogom niščetoj!

U vas — vsja vlastj, vse blaga mira,

A naše pravo — zvuk pustoj!

My žiznj postroim po inomu-

I vot naš lozung bojevoj:

Vsja vlastj narodu trudovomu!

A darmojedov vseh doloj!

{{small|Pripev}}

Prezrenny vy v svojom bogatstve,

Uglja i stali koroli!

Vy vaši trony tunejadcy,

Na naših spinah vozveli.

Zavody, fabriki, palaty –

Vsjo našim sozdano trudom.

Pora! My trebujem vozvrata

Togo čto vzjato grabežom.

{{small|Pripev}}

Dovoljno, koroljam v ugodu,

Durmanitj nas v čadu vojny!

Vojna tiranam! Mir Narodu!

Bastujte armii syny!

Kogda ž tirany nas zastavjat

V boju gerojski pastj za nih –

Ubijcy v vas togda napravim

My žerla pušek bojevyh!

{{small|Pripev}}

Lišj my, rabotniki vsemirnoj

Velikoj armii truda!

Vladetj zemljoj imejem pravo,

No parazity — nikogda!

I jesli grom velikij grjanet

Nad svoroj psov i palačej,

Dlja nas vsjo takže solnce stanet

Sijatj ognjom svoih lučej.

{{small|Pripev}}

|Arise, ones who are branded by the curse,

All the world's starving and enslaved!

Our outraged minds are boiling,

Ready to lead us into a deadly fight.

We will destroy this world of violence

Down to the foundations, and then

We will build our new world.

He who was nothing will become everything!

{{small|Chorus:}}

𝄆 This is our final

and decisive battle;

With the Internationale

humanity will rise up! 𝄇

No one will grant us deliverance,

Not god, nor tsar, nor hero.

We will win our liberation,

With our very own hands.

To throw down oppression with a skilled hand,

To take back what is ours —

Fire up the furnace and hammer boldly,

while the iron is still hot!

{{small|Chorus}}

You've sucked enough of our blood, you vampires,

With prison, taxes and poverty!

You have all the power, all the blessings of the world,

And our rights are but an empty sound!

We'll make our own lives in a different way —

And here is our battle cry:

All the power to the people of labour!

And away with all the parasites!

{{small|Chorus}}

Contemptible you are in your wealth,

You kings of coal and steel!

You had your thrones, parasites,

At our backs erected.

All the factories, all the chambers —

All were made by our hands.

It's time! We demand the return

Of that which was stolen from us.

{{small|Chorus}}

Enough of the will of kings

Stupefying us into the haze of war!

War to the tyrants! Peace to the people!

Go on strike, sons of the army!

And if the tyrants tell us

To fall heroically in battle for them —

Then, murderers, we will point

The muzzles of our cannons at you!

{{small|Chorus}}

Only we, the workers of the worldwide

Great army of labor,

Have the right to own the land,

But the parasites — never!

And if the great thunder rolls

Over the pack of dogs and executioners,

For us, the sun will forever

Shine on with its fiery beams.

{{small|Chorus}}

|}

== Soviet cinema and theatre ==

Dmitry Shostakovich used "The Internationale" twice for the movie soundtrack to the 1936 Soviet movie Girl Friends, once performed by a military-style band when a group of women are preparing for war, and a second time as a solo performance on a theremin.{{sfn|Titus|2016|pp=146,157–158}}

Nikolai Evreinov's 1920 The Storming of the Winter Palace used both "The Internationale" and "La Marseillaise" symbolically in opposition to each other, with the former sung by the "Red platform" proletariat side and the latter sung by the "White platform" government side, the former starting weakly and in disarray but gradually becoming organised and drowning out the latter.{{sfn|Corney|2018|pp=78–79}}

== Toscanini and ''Hymn of the Nations'' ==

The change of the Soviet Union's national anthem from "The Internationale" to the "State Anthem of the USSR" was a factor in the production of the 1944 movie Hymn of the Nations, which made use of an orchestration of "The Internationale" that Arturo Toscanini had already done the year before for a 1943 NBC radio broadcast commemorating the twenty-sixth anniversary of the October Revolution.{{sfn|Marvin|2017|p=106}}

It was incorporated into Verdi's Inno delle nazioni alongside the national anthems of the United Kingdom (already in the original) and the United States (incorporated by Toscanini for a prior radio broadcast of the Inno in January of that year) to signify the side of the Allies during World War Two.{{sfn|Marvin|2017|p=106}}{{sfn|Horowitz|1994|p=179}}

Toscanini's son Walter remarked that an Italian audience for the movie would see the significance of Arturo being willing to play these anthems and unwilling to play Giovinezza and the Marcia Reale because of his anti-Fascist political views.{{sfn|Marvin|2017|p=106}}

Alexandr Hackenschmied, the film's director, expressed his view that the song was "ormai archeologico" (nearly archaeological), but this was a countered in a letter by Walter Toscanini to Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, rejecting the objections of Borgese, Hackenschmied, and indeed the Office of War Information.{{sfn|Marvin|2017|p=107}}

At the time, Walter stated that he believed that "The Internationale" had widespread relevance across Europe, and in 1966 he recounted in correspondence that the OWI had "panicked" when it had learned of the Soviet Union's plans, but Arturo had issued an ultimatum that if "The Internationale", "l'inno di tutte le glebe ed i lavoratori di tutto il mondo" (the anthem of the working classes of the whole world) was not included, that if the already done orchestration and performance were not used as-is, then they should forget about distributing the film entirely.{{sfn|Marvin|2017|p=107}}

The inclusion of "The Internationale" in the Toscaninis' minds was not simply for the sake of a Soviet Union audience, but because of its relevance to all countries of the world.{{sfn|Marvin|2017|pp=107–108}} Although Walter did not consider "The Internationale" to be "good music", he considered it to be (as he stated to the OWI) "more than the hymn of a nation or a party" and "an idea of brotherhood".{{sfn|Marvin|2017|pp=107–108}}

It would have been expensive to re-record a new performance of the Inno without "The Internationale", and thus it remained in the movie as originally released.{{sfn|Marvin|2017|p=108}}

Some time during the McCarthy Era, however, it was edited out of re-released copies, and remained so until a 1988 Library of Congress release on video, which restored "The Internationale" to the movie.{{sfn|Marvin|2017|p=108}}

== Winston Churchill and ''National Anthems of the Allies'' ==

A similar situation had occurred earlier in the war with the BBC's popular weekly Sunday evening radio broadcast, preceding the Nine O'Clock News, titled National Anthems of the Allies, whose playlist was all of the national anthems of the countries allied with the United Kingdom, the list growing with each country that Germany invaded.{{sfn|Miner|2003|p=206}}{{sfn|Hermiston|2016|p=115}} After the Germans began their invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), it was fully expected that "The Internationale", as the anthem of the Soviet Union, would be included in the playlist that day, but to people's surprise it was not, neither that week nor the week after.{{sfn|Hermiston|2016|p=115}} Winston Churchill, a staunch opponent of communism, had immediately sent word to the BBC via Anthony Eden that "The PM has issued an instruction to the Ministry of Information that the Internationale is on no account to be played by the B.B.C." (emphasis in the original).{{sfn|Miner|2003|p=207}}{{sfn|Addison|1975|p=134}}

Newspapers such as the Daily Express and Daily Mail were sharply critical of the Foreign Office, and questions were asked in the House of Commons.{{sfn|Hermiston|2016|pp=115–116}}{{sfn|Addison|1975|p=134}} Ambassador Ivan Maisky recorded in his diary a conversation with Duff Cooper on 11 July 1941 where Cooper asked him if the music played after Vyacheslav Molotov's speech on 22 June would be acceptable to the Soviet Union, and he replied that it would not be.{{sfn|Maisky|2015|pp=371–372}}{{sfn|Dimbleby|2021|p=189}} (The music was Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.{{sfn|Hermiston|2016|p=115}}) On the evening of 13 July, the BBC instead played, in Maisky's words, "a very beautiful but little-known Soviet song", which he described as demonstrating "the British Government's cowardice and foolishness".{{sfn|Maisky|2015|p=372}}{{sfn|Dimbleby|2021|p=189}} Rather than risk offending the Soviet Union by continuing to pointedly refuse to play its national anthem in a radio programme entitled National Anthems, the BBC discontinued the programme.{{sfn|Miner|2003|p=207}}{{sfn|Hermiston|2016|p=116}} Six months later, on 22 January 1942, Churchill relented and lifted the prohibition.{{sfn|Hermiston|2016|p=116}}{{sfn|Addison|1975|p=134}}

This relaxation enabled "The Internationale" to be used in wartime broadcasts and films, and at public occasions, thereafter.{{sfn|Webster|2018|p=154}} The BBC's 1943 Salute to the Red Army had a mass performance of "The Internationale" at the Royal Albert Hall by the choir of the Royal Choral Society, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and military bands, in front of the flag of the Soviet Union and following a speech by Anthony Eden.{{sfn|Webster|2018|p=154}}{{sfn|Turbett|2021|p=64}}{{sfn|Warden|2016|p=93}} The day before, which was Red Army Day, troops and the audience had sung "The Internationale" to the Lord Mayor of Bristol.{{sfn|Turbett|2021|p=64}} The 1944 movie Tawny Pipit depicted schoolchildren in the fictional village of Lipton Lea welcoming the character Olga Boclova (based upon Ludmilla Pavlichenko) to their town by singing "The Internationale".{{sfn|Webster|2018|p=154}}

= China =

Qu Qiubai revised the translation of the lyrics into Chinese after having attended the Fourth Conference of Comintern in November 1921 and having not been able to join in the spontaneous singing by attendees there of "The Internationale" in their various home languages with their own Chinese rendition because the Chinese attendees did not have a good one.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=196}}

He proceeded, according to the political memoirs of his contemporaries, in 1923 to re-translate the lyrics from the original French at the organ in his cousin's home in Beijing, publishing them in New Youth, a journal of which he was the editor-in-chief.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=197}}

This has become part of the cultural narrative of Qu's life, including in a 2001 television dramatisation of events, The Sun Rises from the East, where Qu is depicted as explaining to Cai Hesen that the former did not translate the song's title because he wished to make the Chinese version, which used a phonetic rendering of the French name using Chinese words "yingtenaixiongnaier", accessible to a multi-lingual non-Chinese-speaking audience.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=197}}

The television dramatisation included excerpts from the movie Lenin in October, a popular movie in China during the time of Mao with scenes that were set to "The Internationale".{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=198}}

Lenin in October was one of several movies from Soviet cinema translated into Chinese in the 1950s that led to the widespread popularity of "The Internationale" in the early years of the PRC.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=200}}

Others include Lenin in 1918, a 1939 movie which came to China in 1951, with "The Internationale" abruptly terminated at the point in the movie that Lenin is shot by an assassin; and the 1952 The Unforgettable 1919 which came to China that same year and used "The Internationale" for a mass rally scene involving Joseph Stalin.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=201}}

Chinese movies about martyrs to the CCP cause would begin to incorporate the song into pivotal scenes later in the 1950s, this use peaking in the 1960s with inclusion into such movies as the 1965 Living Forever in Burning Flames depicting the execution of Jiang Jie.{{sfn|Chen|2016|pp=200,202}}

In the 1956 film Mother, the character Lao Deng, a local revolutionary leader, is depicted singing "The Internationale" on the way to his execution, and in the 1960 A Revolutionary Family, the son of the protagonist (in chorus with his fellow prisoners) also sings "The Internationale" on the way to his execution.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=2013}} It would become a leitmotif of Chinese Revolutionary (model) cinema.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=204}}

Political memoirs of Li Dazhao's daughter Li Xinghua recount his explaining the lyrics of the song to her, he having encountered it on his travels with Qu in 1923 and during his visit to Moscow the following year.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=198}}

He also encouraged people to sing it during socialist activism training sessions in 1925 and 1926.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=198}}

As with Qu, the song forms part of the cultural narrative of his life, it being the widely accepted account of his execution in 1927 that he sang the song in the last moments of his life.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=198}}

As with Qu and Li, the song is found in many places in political histories of CCP leaders and martyrs to its cause, symbolising their socialist ideals, including Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping.{{sfn|Chen|2016|pp=198–199}}

It has also seen continued, and sometimes contradictory, uses over the decades as politics in China have changed, such as (for one example) Chen Yun's use in the 1960s to justify a new agricultural land allocation policy.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=199}}

It has maintained its status as a de facto CCP anthem, and its continued relevance over the decades can be seen in its inclusion in all three of the 1964 The East Is Red, the 1984 The Song of the Chinese Revolution, and the 2009 The Road to Prosperity.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=200}}

While the song has a wide influence as an adjunct of official ideology, it has also been used in counter-cultural movements, such as the demonstrators in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests singing it during their final retreat.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=209}}

Barbara Mittler maintains that this dual use of "The Internationale" by the government and by people demonstrating against it disproves any hypothesis that "a certain type of music 'depicts' a certain social environment".{{sfn|Mittler|1997|p=133}}

"The Internationale" continues to be popular with 21st century Chinese audiences, as exemplified by its reception by audience when sung at the second curtain call of the "Shocking" concert of Liu Han, Liao Changyong, and Mo Hualun.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=210}}

Qu was hired as a translator for students at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow, where he met Xiao San in 1922, who had newly arrived from France.{{sfn|McGuire|2018|pp=74,82}}

There, Xiao was drawn into the performing arts as a vehicle for revolutionary messages and, in conjunction with other students, translated "The Internationale" and several Soviet songs from the original French and Russian into Chinese, separately from Qu's work in Beijing in 1923.{{sfn|McGuire|2018|p=82}}

Xiao re-worked his translation in 1939, adding to it an explanatory history.{{sfn|McGuire|2018|p=389}}

Ironically, the translation in the television dramatisation The Sun Rises from the East that is recited by the character of Qu, is not in reality Qu's translation at all, but is the 1949 official approved translation based upon Xiao's, that is additionally credited to Zheng Zhenduo.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=211}}

The 2004 movie My Years in France, a biographical film of Deng Xiaoping, re-framed this history into a dramatic scene, set in 1920s Paris before Xiao leaves for Moscow, in which Zhou Enlai, Liu Qingyang, Zhang Shenfu, and others climb to the top of Notre Dame to sing "The Internationale" to the accompaniment of its bell Emmanuel, and the character of Xiao resolves at that point, instead, to translate the song into Chinese.{{sfn|Chen|2016|p=206}}

In addition to the Mandarin version, "The Internationale" also has Cantonese{{cite web |url=http://www.alliance.org.hk/infoindex/song/lyrics/a22.html |title=香港市民支援愛國民主運動聯合會 {{pipe}} Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China |access-date=12 June 2004 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040612003939/http://www.alliance/ |archive-date=12 June 2004 }} and Taiwanese Hokkien{{cite web |url=http://www.socialforce.tw/blog/blog_notes.php?uid=7845 |title=媒抗 Blog: Zeromatic-II |access-date=18 January 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060118173000/http://www.socialforce.tw/blog/blog_notes.php?uid=7845 |archive-date=18 January 2006}} versions, occasionally used by communists or leftists in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The word "Internationale" is not translated in either version. There is also a Uyghur version, a Salar version, a Tibetan version,{{cite AV media |date=30 August 2020 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky6uAR23Wbo |title=The Internationale: Tibetan (རྒྱལ་སྤྱིའི་གླུ་དབྱངས བོད་སྐད་) |publisher=GETchan |via=YouTube |access-date=5 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304025404/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky6uAR23Wbo |archive-date=4 March 2021 |url-status=live}} a Hmong version, a Chakhar Mongolian version, a Yi version, and a Zhuang version translated from the Mandarin Chinese version, used for ethnic minorities in China.

=Other languages=

==Afrikaans translation==

In the first half of the twentieth century, communists, unionists and activists of all races in South Africa sang the Internationale until the Communist Party and even loosely linked associations were suppressed from 1950.{{Cite book |last=Roux |first=Edward |title=Time Longer Than Rope: A History of the Black Man's Struggle for Freedom in South Africa |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=1964 |pages=139–36}} Although no Afrikaans translation from the early period has been published, Afrikaans-speaking unionists worked in significant numbers in the garment industry in the 1920s and 1930s, and were introduced to international socialism by union secretary, E. S. Sachs.{{Cite book |last=Berger |first=Iris |title=Threads of Solidarity: Women in South African Industry, 1900-1980 |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1992 |isbn=0253207002 |location=Bloomington IN |pages=103–104}} The Afrikaans translation that is available today, in the wake of the SACP's return to South Africa in 1990, is a distinctly post-apartheid version (2009) by singer-sociologist [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=M-Q7uUgAAAAJ&hl=en Liela Groenewald].{{Cite web |last=Musescore |title=L'Internationale - met Afrikaanse lirieke deur Liela Groenewald |url=https://musescore.com/user/114368/scores/11892535 |access-date=2024-08-19 |website=Musescore.com |language=en}} In this video, Liela Groenewald is accompanied by brown South African musician Mervin Williams; their collaboration reflects the post-apartheid acknowledgement of Afrikaans as the language of a majority of brown (and a few black) in addition to white South Africans. English-speakers have sung a version of the British translation; for information on the Zulu version, see the paragraph on Zulu below.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2GsjeH4aSc Internationale Zulu/Zulu] – YouTube

== Bengali translation ==

"The Internationale" was first translated to Bengali by the rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. Nazrul, who was greatly inspired by the tenets of Socialism and its relevance to India under British colonial occupation, authored numerous poems in Bengali highlighting socio-political issues, including gender and economic inequities, and social justice overall. Around 1927, Nazrul was approached by Muzaffar Ahmad, one of the Founders of the Communist Party of India, requesting that he translate the celebrated song into Bengali. While it maintains the essential theme of the original (via the English version), Nazrul inserted salient social issues into it within the Indian context. It was also translated by Hemanga Biswas{{Cite web|url=https://www.newagebd.net/article/124773/remembering-hemanga-biswas-an-artivist-who-fought-to-have-it-all|title = Remembering Hemanga Biswas: An artivist who fought to have it all}} and Mohit Banerji, that was subsequently adopted by West Bengal's Left Front.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ebanglalibrary.com/banglalyrics/554/%E0%A6%9C%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%97%E0%A7%8B-%E0%A6%9C%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%97%E0%A7%8B-%E0%A6%9C%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%97%E0%A7%8B-%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%B9%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%BE/|title = জাগো জাগো জাগো সর্বহারা – Bangla Lyrics । বাংলা লিরিক}} Here is the Bengali audio version, performed by Satya Chowdhury.{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIKSwiBs2uM|title = Jago Anashan Bandi| website=YouTube | date=15 February 2019 }}

Appended below are the Bengali lyrics written by Kazi Nazrul Islam:

{{Cite web|url=https://nazrulgeeti.org/ja/jago-anashan-bandi-otho-re-jata|title = Jago Anashan Bandi Otho Re Jata}}

==English translations==

The traditional British version of "The Internationale" is usually sung in three verses, while the American version, written by Charles Hope Kerr with five verses, is usually sung in two.{{cite web|url=http://www.sonoma.edu/users/w/wallsd/smm-aging-anthems.shtml#_ednref20|title=Billy Bragg's Revival of Aging Anthems: Radical Nostalgia or Activist Inspiration?|first1=David|last1=Walls|date=17 July 2007|website=Sonoma State University|access-date=18 August 2008|archive-date=16 December 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111216115837/http://sonoma.edu/users/w/wallsd/smm-aging-anthems.shtml#_ednref20|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?lang=en&id=2003&infos=1#agg1933|display-authors=et al|title=The Internationale" in 82 languages|website=Anti-War Songs|last1=Venturi|first1=Riccardo|date=8 June 2005}} The American version is sometimes sung with the phrase "the internationale", "the international soviet", or "the international union" in place of "the international working class". In English renditions, "Internationale" is sometimes sung as {{IPAc-en|ˌ|ɪ|n|t|ər|n|æ|ʃ|ə|ˈ|n|æ|l|i}} {{respell|IN|tər|nash|ə|NAL|ee}} rather than the French pronunciation of {{IPA|fr|ɛ̃tɛʁnɑsjɔnal(ə)|}}. In modern usage, the American version also often uses "their" instead of "his" in "Let each stand in his place", and "free" instead of "be" in "Shall be the Human race".

Pete Seeger asked Billy Bragg to sing "The Internationale" with him at the Vancouver Folk Festival in 1989. Bragg thought the traditional English lyrics were archaic and unsingable (Scottish musician Dick Gaughan{{cite web|last1=Gaughan|first1=Dick|author-link=Dick Gaughan|title=The Internationale|url=http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/songs/texts/internat.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929070915/http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/songs/texts/internat.html|archive-date=29 September 2018|website=Dick Gaughan's Song Archive|quote=I can see no more point in trying to 'modernise' it than I would in repainting the {{sic|Cistine}} Chapel or rewriting Shakespeare's plays.}} and former Labour MP Tony Benn{{sfn|Benn|2014|p=129}} disagreed), and composed a new set of lyrics.{{YouTube|3BIvqbyku5g|Billy Bragg – Internationale}}, from the Pete Seeger 90th Birthday Concert (The Clearwater Concert) at Madison Square Garden, 3 May 2009. The recording was released on his album The Internationale along with reworkings of other socialist songs.

The English translation of a selection of Pottier's songs and speeches, Beyond the Internationale: Revolutionary Writings, includes, in addition to the traditional British version and Kerr's American version, a [https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/international.htm 1922 version endorsed by the Socialist Labor Party], as well as Bragg's adaptation and one by the Workers Party of Jamaica.{{Cite book |last=Pottier |first=Eugène |title=Beyond the Internationale: Revolutionary Writings |date=2024 |publisher=Charles H. Kerr |isbn=9780882860329 |editor-last=Kruger |editor-first=Loren |location=Chicago |publication-date=2024 |pages=107–117 |translator-last=Kruger |translator-first=Lorem}}

==Filipino translation==

There were three Filipino versions of the song. The first was composed by Juan Feleo of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 under the title "Pandaigdigang Awit ng Manggagawa" ('The International Worker's Anthem') which was translated from the English version. The second version was a retranslation of the first two stanzas on the basis of the French original by the Communist Party of the Philippines. The third version, which introduced the third stanza, was derived from both Chinese and French versions and translated by Jose Maria Sison, the CPP's founding chairman.{{Cite web|url=https://josemariasison.org/the-internationale-in-pilipino-2/|title=The Internationale in Filipino|website=Josemariasison.org|access-date=25 October 2018|archive-date=19 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210719045739/https://josemariasison.org/the-internationale-in-pilipino-2/|url-status=dead}}

==German translations==

The best-known and still widespread German-language adaptation was created by Emil Luckhardt in 1896, in response to a commission from Wilhelm Liebknecht, member of the Socialist Party of Germany and one of the leaders of the Second International after Liebknecht heard the French original in Lille in 1894.{{Cite book |last=Ferro |first=Marc |title=L'Internationale: Histoire d'un chant de Pottier et Degeyter |publisher=Noésus |year=1996 |isbn=2911606027 |location=Paris |pages=37 |language=French |trans-title=The Internationale: History of a Song by Pottier and Degeyter}} Luckhardt translated the first, second, and sixth verses as well as the chorus from the French. Created in the context of the Second Internationale, Luckhardt's text reflects the late 19th-century optimism of the Second International anticipating an imminent revolution.{{Cite book |last=Pottier |first=Eugene |title=Beyond the Internationale, 120-121; 128-29}}

Apart from Luckhardt's version, there are at least seven other German text variants—each relating to specific historical situations or ideologically divergent socialist, communist and anarchist alignments. In addition to the Luckhardt version mentioned above, there is a version penned by Franz Diederich (1908), and another written by the poet Erich Mühsam in 1919, Sigmar Mehring's version (1908) appeared after his 1915 death in a collection of songs of the Paris Commune edited in 1924 by his son Walter Mehring.{{Cite book |title=Französische Revolutionslieder der Pariser Commune |year=1924 |editor-last=Mehring |editor-first=Walteer |location=Berlin, East |publication-date=1971 |pages=20–21 |language=German |translator-last=Mehring |translator-first=Sigmar |trans-title=French Revolutionary Songs of the Paris Commune}} In 1937, at which time German socialists and communists were scattered in exile, Erich Weinert, wrote a new version for the Thälmann Brigade fighting for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, Weinert's version became the standard in East Germany, where it was reprinted in a 1971 edition containing English, Russian, German and the original French, in commemoration of the centennial of the Paris Commune.{{Cite book |last=Pottier |first=Eugene |title=Die Internationale |publisher=Rütten and Loenig |year=1971 |location=Berlin, East |language=German |translator-last=Weinert |translator-first=Erich |trans-title=The Internationale}}

== Korean translations ==

"The Internationale" is used in both Koreas, though it is more commonly used in the North. The DPRK uses "The Internationale" in propaganda and music,{{cite AV media |date=30 April 2014 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4jgV1nW80 |title=인터나쇼날 |publisher=urinore1 |via=YouTube |access-date=5 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210318142131/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4jgV1nW80 |archive-date=18 March 2021 |url-status=live}} Party Congresses,{{cite AV media |date=12 January 2021 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQAjS1fiY3I |title="The Internationale" closes the 8th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea |publisher=푸옹 Phuong DPRK Daily |via=YouTube |access-date=5 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922060122/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQAjS1fiY3I |archive-date=22 September 2021 |url-status=live}} and even sports events.{{cite AV media |date=1 August 2013 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L2HBVF1uIg |title=The Internationale in North Korea (Arirang Mass Games 2013) |publisher=Pyongyang |via=YouTube |access-date=5 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204095311/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L2HBVF1uIg |archive-date=4 February 2017 |url-status=live}} In South Korea, "The Internationale" has been used by labour unions and protestors, but remains less celebrated. A different set of lyrics, loosely based on the German version, is used in South Korea, while the North Korean version is based on the Soviet Russian version of "The Internationale". In addition, the refrain of the South Korean version is longer and does not repeat.{{cite AV media |date=1 March 2013 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXYA6XE4uoI |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/tXYA6XE4uoI| archive-date=12 December 2021 |url-status=live|title=인터내셔널가 – The Internationale Korean version |publisher=Daehanminguk31 |via=YouTube |access-date=5 October 2021}}{{cbignore}}

== Persian translations ==

For the first time, Abolqasem Lahouti, an Iranian poet and songwriter, translated and standardized "The Internationale" into Persian. It was used as the official anthem of the short lived Persian Socialist Soviet Republic and one of the main anthems of the communist Tudeh Party of Iran.{{Cite web|title=Taraneh sorod|url=http://www.fadaian.org/jong/sorod/soroud.htm|access-date=21 October 2022|archive-date=1 November 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051101221232/http://www.fadaian.org/jong/sorod/soroud.htm|url-status=dead}}{{cite web |title=سرود انترناسیونال |url=http://www.k-en.com/kp-1871/ojen/international.html |website=www.k-en.com |access-date=9 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111125165110/http://www.k-en.com/kp-1871/ojen/international.html |archive-date=November 25, 2011 |language=fa}} In addition, after he settled in the Soviet Union, he translated his work into Tajik.

== Portuguese translations ==

Originally translated to Portuguese by Neno Vasco in 1909 from the French version,{{cite news |last1=Gonçalves |first1=Thaísa |title=15 de setembro de 1920: morre o anarquista Neno Vasco, que traduziu para o português o hino A Internacional |url=https://www.dmtemdebate.com.br/15-de-setembro-de-1920-morre-o-anarquista-neno-vasco-que-traduziu-para-o-portugues-o-hino-a-internacional/ |access-date=19 February 2022 |work=Democracia e Mundo do Trabalho em Debate |language=pt-BR}} a similar version was wildly disseminated during the general strike of 1917 by anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists. A slightly modified version[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjlX3xOOjpA A Internacional - The Internationale (Brazilian Portuguese Lyrics & English Translation)] – YouTube is used various left-wing and far-left parties in Brazil.

== Spanish translations ==

There are several Spanish versions, with distinct variations but without any attribution to single authors. The earliest is still sung by the Spanish Communist Party but it was apparently produced around 1910, before the split between Socialist and Communist parties across Europe around 1920.{{cite web | url=https://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?id=2003&lang=en#agg1933 | title=Antiwar Songs (AWS): Eugène Pottier - l'Internationale }}Pottier, Beyond the Internationale, 138-41 This version is also supported by the ruling Communist Party in Cuba.{{Cite web |title=La Internacional - EcuRed |url=https://www.ecured.cu/La_Internacional |access-date=2024-09-10 |website=www.ecured.cu |language=es}} The Mexican version, in contrast, is based on earlier versions of "The Internationale", suggesting that it dates to the Mexican Revolution. The Argentine version was associated with the Argentine Socialist Party from 1958 to the junta of the generals in 1976.Pottier, Beyond the Internationale, 142-44

In Latin America, "The Internationale" has also been translated into different indigenous languages, including Aymara, Guaraní, Nahuatl,[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppZiJck2T4s Tlacacomecayotl - L'Internationale but Nahuatl (Nawatnahtolli)] – YouTube and Quechua.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuOxFZzrTis Internasyonal Taki - L'Internationale but Quechua (Runa Simi)] – YouTube

== Swahili translation ==

In Kenya, "The Internationale" was translated into Swahili by the Communist Party Marxist - Kenya. It was declared the group's anthem[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSPEynjp9aI The Internationale (Kiswahili)] – YouTube during the second national congress in November 2024. Known as Wimbo wa Kimataifa, the Internationale, was translated by the then-party chairman, Mwandawiro Mghanga and performed by the party's band and released in a bundled album, together with other revolutionary songs and poems.{{Cite web |last=Mboyo |first=Tony |title=THE CPK MUSIC PROJECT |url=https://communistpartyofkenya.org/87-recent-news/217-the-cpk-music-project |website=CPMK}}{{Cite web |title=CPM Kenya |url=https://progressive.international/members/de4f783f-94f8-471b-908d-d2566bd8d641-cpm-kenya/en |website=Progressive International}}

== Vietnamese translation ==

"The Internationale" was first translated into Vietnamese by the founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the first President of modern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, under the pseudonym "Nguyễn Ái Quốc".{{Cite web|url=https://baohatinh.vn/van-hoa-giai-tri/quoc-te-ca-va-cac-ban-dich-tieng-viet/107809.htm|title = Quốc tế ca và các bản dịch tiếng Việt| date=17 January 2016 }} The current lyrics in Vietnamese were translated by the 1st and 2nd General Secretaries of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Trần Phú and Lê Hồng Phong. It was subsequently adopted by the Communist Party of Vietnam.{{Cite web |date=December 31, 2024 |title=Official dispatch 10385 |url=https://cdn.thuviennhadat.vn/upload/hinh-anh-bai-viet/NTTT/thang-2/Ngay13-2/cong-van-dai-hoi.pdf |url-status=live}}

== Yiddish translation ==

A Yiddish translation of "The Internationale" first appeared in the collection Yidishe folks-lider ('Yiddish Folk Songs') edited by Moshe Beregovski and Itzik Feffer. It was published in Kyiv, capital of what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, in 1938.{{Cite web |date=2021-05-12 |title="Der internatsyonal" Performed by Martin Horowitz |url=https://yiddishsong.wordpress.com/2021/05/12/der-internatsyonal-performed-by-martin-horowitz/ |access-date=2024-09-18 |website=Yiddish Song of the Week |language=en}} Judging from metaphors that the Yiddish shares with the [http://www.norma40.ru/articles/internatsional-v-rossii.htm Russian version]—both have "mind" or "spirit boling: rather than la raison tonne or "reason thunders" in the FrenchPottier, Beyond the Internationale, 16, 135-37, 144-46—and the translators' location in the Soviet Union, it is likely that they were working from the Russian rather than the original French.

== Zulu translation ==

A version of "The Internationale" in Zulu, South Africa's most populous language, aired on South African radio in 1990, after the South African Communist Party resurfaced after forty years of exile, The translator has not been identified but the Zulu version is likely to have been in circulation at party meetings and similar events since Zulu-speakers joined the SACP in the 1920s.{{Cite book |last=Ellis |first=Stephen |title=Comrades Against Apartheid: The ANC and the South African Communist Party in Exile |last2=Sechaba |first2=Tsepo |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1992 |isbn=9780253210623 |location=Bloomington IN |pages=15}}Pottier, Beyond the Internationale, 119-23, 147 The translation may have been penned or authorized by Moses Kotane, who was secretary-general of the SACP from 1939 until his death in exile in 1978. Although heard often on public occasions in the 1990s, such as at the state funeral for Joe Slovo, long-time SACP leader and minister of housing in Nelson Mandela's cabinet, in 1995, it has receded from public airing as the party has lost influence in South Africa.[https://theafrican.co.za/politics/is-the-sacp-still-relevant-in-south-africa-today-565a4579-8ab3-417f-a70b-7e879391816f/][https://www.citizen.co.za/news/opinion/sacp-needs-more-than-marxism/]

= Audio files =

File:"The Internationale" audio, sung at the Socialism 2013 Conference in Chicago.ogg|The American English version

File:The Internationale(English)(Lyrics).ogg|The British English version

File:Интернационалът - The Internationale (Bulgarian).flac|The Bulgarian version

File:La Internacio en Esperanto (audio only).ogg|The Esperanto version

File:Internationale-ka.ogg|The Georgian version

File:Internationale-it.ogg|The Italian version

File:Internationale-ind.ogg|The Indonesian version

File:Internationale-lt.ogg|The Lithuanian version

File:Internationale-lv.ogg|The Latvian version

File:Internationale-cmn (英特纳雄耐尔).ogg|The Mandarin version

File:Internationale-ne (अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय).oga|The Nepali version

File:Internationale-ru.ogg|The Russian version

File:Internationale-es.ogg|The Spanish version

File:The Internationale (Tangut).ogg|The Tangut version

File:Internationale-uk.ogg|The Ukrainian version

File:Internationale-Vi.ogg|The Vietnamese version

Allusions in other works

The "anthem" in the early pages of George Orwell's Animal Farm has been described as a "parody"{{sfn|Strong|2019|p=207}} or a "reconfiguration"{{cite book |title=Animal Farm|first=George |last=Orwell |editor1-first=David |editor1-last=Dwan |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2021 |isbn=9780198813736 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XRUOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA85 |page=85}} of "The Internationale"; Orwell's text states (as a "humorous introduction") that it was sung as "between Clementine and La Cucaracha",{{cite journal |title=Orwellian Comedy |first=Kenneth |last=Ligda |journal=Twentieth Century Literature |year=2014 |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=513–537 |doi=10.1215/0041462X-2014-1005 |jstor=24247102 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24247102}}

William Carlos Williams' poem Choral: The Pink Church alludes to the lyrics of "The Internationale" in order to symbolise Communism, the poem otherwise barely mentioning Communism directly, Williams himself claiming to be "a pink [...] not a red" in a letter discussing the poem.{{sfn|Cohen|2010|pp=218–219}}

One of Aleksandr Lebedev-Frontov's most famous works, which hung in the headquarters of the National Bolshevik Party, is a poster of the French Fantomas aiming a pistol at the viewer, subtitled with the first line of the Russian version of "The Internationale".{{sfn|Fenghi|2020|p=108}}

The Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky concluded his play Mystery-Bouffe with an "Internationale of the Future", set to the tune of the Internationale, but with lyrics describing a complete, perfect classless society as an existing fact.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}

Even though it stood on the far-right of the political spectrum, the Greek political party Golden Dawn employed a tune similar to "The Internationale" as its party anthem, the Hymn of the Golden Dawn, with a more militaristic and fascistic sound in the style of a military march. Its similar melody to a communist song possibly stemmed from the admiration of some of its members, such as Greek MP Ilias Panagiotaros, for Soviet leader Josef Stalin, as a "great personality".{{cite news |work=Haaretz |url=http://vimeo.com/91838843 |date=18 April 2014 |title=60 Minutes. Greek Tragedy 2040413 (Greek Nationalists, Golden Dawn)}}

The Internationale is mentioned by name in the They Might Be Giants song "The Communists Have the Music", when John Linnell sings, "I don't need a rationale / To sing "The Internationale" / I only need to plug in the headphone jack / So I can listen to my backing track."{{Citation |title=They Might Be Giants – The Communists Have the Music |url=https://genius.com/They-might-be-giants-the-communists-have-the-music-lyrics |access-date=2025-01-29}}

Documentary film on the anthem

Peter Miller produced and directed a half-hour documentary on the anthem with interviews with a range of people including Annette Rubinstein, Vladimir Grigoryevich Zak, Marina Feleo-Gonzalez, Pete Seeger, Dorothy Ray Healey, Li Lu and Billy Bragg. The film aims to provide a cultural history of the anthem that addresses the complexities of the relationships between the collective and the individual.Atkinson, Ted. "The Internationale." Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 31, no. 2 (2001): 62-62.Fletcher, I. C. (2002). The Internationale. Radical History Review, 82(1), 187-190. The film was short-listed for the Academy Award nomination for the Best Short Documentary and won the Woodstock Film Festival, Best Short Documentary award.TVF International: The Internationale https://tvfinternational.com/programme/15/the-internationale

See also

Notes

{{notelist}}

References

=Citations=

{{reflist|20em}}

=Bibliography=

{{refbegin}}

  • {{cite book|title=The Politics of Verdi's Cantica|author1-first=Roberta Montemorra|author1-last=Marvin|publisher=Routledge|year=2017|isbn=9781351541459}}
  • {{cite web|url=http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/7078/inter.txt|title=The International|work=The Guardian|location=Melbourne|date=3 June 1998|first=Tom|last=Gill|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091027052335/http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7078/inter.txt|archivedate=2009-10-27|url-status=dead}}
  • {{cite book|title=Understanding Toscanini: A Social History of American Concert Life|author1-first=Joseph|author1-last=Horowitz|publisher=University of California Press|year=1994|isbn=9780520085428}}
  • {{cite book|title=The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures|editor1-first=Carlos|editor1-last=Rojas|editor2-first=Andrea|editor2-last=Bachner|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2016|isbn=9780199383313|chapter=Singing "The Internationale"|author1-first=Xiaomei|author1-last=Chen}}
  • {{cite book|title=Red at Heart: How Chinese Communists Fell in Love with the Russian Revolution|author1-first=Elizabeth|author1-last=McGuire|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2018|isbn=9780190640552|chapter=School dramas}}
  • {{cite book|title=Dangerous Tunes: The Politics of Chinese Music in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China Since 1949|volume=3|series=Opera sinologica|issn=0949-7927|author1-first=Barbara|author1-last=Mittler|author1-link=Barbara Mittler|publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag|year=1997|isbn=9783447039208|chapter=Development 'How new is China's New Music?'}}
  • {{cite book|title=Musical Solidarities: Political Action and Music in Late Twentieth-Century Poland|chapter=Protest|series=The New Cultural History of Music Series|author1-first=Andrea|author1-last=Bohlman|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|isbn=9780190938284}}
  • {{cite book|title=The Early Film Music of Dmitry Shostakovich|author1-first=Joan|author1-last=Titus|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2016|isbn=9780199315147}}
  • {{cite book|title=The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to the Court of St James's, 1932–1943|author1-first=Ivan Mikhailovich|author1-last=Maisky|author1-link=Ivan Maisky|editor1-first=Gabriel|editor1-last=Gorodetsky|translator1-first=Tatiana|translator1-last=Sorokina|translator2-first=Oliver|translator2-last=Ready|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2015|isbn=9780300180671}}
  • {{cite book|title=Stalin's Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, and Alliance Politics, 1941–1945|author1-first=Steven Merritt|author1-last=Miner|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|year=2003|isbn=9780807827369}}
  • {{cite book|title=The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War|author1-first=Paul|author1-last=Addison|publisher=Jonathan Cape|year=1975|isbn=9780224011594}}
  • {{cite book|title=All Behind You, Winston: Churchill's Great Coalition 1940–45|author1-first=Roger|author1-last=Hermiston|publisher=Aurum|year=2016|isbn=9781781314845}}
  • {{cite book|title=Operation Barbarossa: The History of a Cataclysm|author1-first=Jonathan|author1-last=Dimbleby|author1-link=Jonathan Dimbleby|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2021|isbn=9780197547212}}
  • {{cite journal |url=https://www.tijdschrift-filter.nl/jaargangen/1999/62/het-heilge-ontwakingslied-32-43/ |accessdate=2 February 2022 |title=Het heil'ge Ontwakingslied: 'De Internationale' vertaald |pages=32–43 |first=Jan |last=Gielkens |language=nl |journal=Filter |year=1999 |volume=6 |issue=2}}
  • {{cite book|title=Beleaguered Poets and Leftist Critics: Stevens, Cummings, Frost, and Williams in the 1930s|author1-first=Milton A.|author1-last=Cohen|publisher=University of Alabama Press|year=2010|isbn=9780817317133}}
  • {{cite book|first1=Tony|last1=Benn|author-link=Tony Benn|title=A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JaG2AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA129|year=2014|publisher=Arrow Books|isbn=978-0-09-956495-9}}
  • {{cite book|title=It Will Be Fun and Terrifying: Nationalism and Protest in Post-Soviet Russia|author1-first=Fabrizio|author1-last=Fenghi|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|year=2020|isbn=9780299324407|chapter=Bohemianism, political militancy, and resistance to Modernity}}
  • {{cite book |title=Learning One's Native Tongue: Citizenship, Contestation, and Conflict in America |first=Tracy B. |last=Strong |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2019|isbn=9780226623368 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wp66DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA207}}
  • {{cite book|title=Mixing It: Diversity in World War Two Britain|author1-first=Wendy|author1-last=Webster|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2018|isbn=9780192572356|chapter=Allies}}
  • {{cite book|title=The Anglo-Soviet Alliance: Comrades and Allies during WW2|author1-first=Colin|author1-last=Turbett|publisher=Pen and Sword Military|year=2021|isbn=9781526776617}}
  • {{cite book|title=Migrating Modernist Performance: British Theatrical Travels Through Russia|author1-first=Claire|author1-last=Warden|publisher=Springer|year=2016|isbn=9781137385703}}
  • {{cite book|title=Comintern Aesthetics|author1-first=Katerina|author1-last=Clark|chapter=Berlin—Moscow—Shanghai: Translating revolution across cultures in the aftermath of the 1927 Shanghai Debacle|editor1-first=Amelia M.|editor1-last=Glaser|editor2-first=Steven S.|editor2-last=Lee|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=2020|isbn=9781487504656}}
  • {{cite book|title=Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880–1914|author1-first=Tom|author1-last=Goyens|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2007|isbn=9780252031755}}
  • {{cite encyclopaedia|article="The Internationale" (1871-1888)|author1-first=Nicholas John|author1-last=Cull|encyclopaedia=Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present|editor1-first=Nicholas John|editor1-last=Cull|editor2-first=David Holbrook|editor2-last=Culbert|editor3-first=David|editor3-last=Welch|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2003|isbn=9781576078204}}
  • {{cite book|title=The Book of World-famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk|series=Dover Books on Music|author1-first=James J.|author1-last=Fuld|publisher=Courier Corporation|year=2000|isbn=9780486414751}}
  • {{cite book|title=L'Europe des hymnes dans leur contexte historique et musical|author1-first=Xavier|author1-last=Maugendre|publisher=Editions Mardaga|year=1996|isbn=9782870096321|language=fr}}
  • {{cite book|title=La chanson de la Commune: chansons et poèmes inspirés par la Commune de 1871|author1-first=Robert|author1-last=Brécy|publisher=Editions de l'Atelier|year=1991|isbn=9782708228559|language=fr}}
  • {{cite book|title=Scots and the Spanish Civil War: Solidarity, Activism and Humanitarianism|author1-first=Fraser|author1-last=Raeburn|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2020|isbn=9781474459501}}
  • {{cite book|title=Telling October: Memory and the Making of the Bolshevik Revolution|author1-first=Frederick|author1-last=Corney|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=2018|isbn=9781501727030}}
  • {{cite journal |accessdate= |title=Translating the Internationale: Unity and dissent in the encoding of proletarian solidarity |pages=87–109 |first=Ron |last=Kuzar |journal=Journal of Pragmatics|year=2002 |volume=34 |issue=2|doi=10.1016/S0378-2166(02)80007-8 }}

{{refend}}

Further reading

{{refbegin}}

  • {{cite book|title=Russian Music at Home and Abroad: New Essays|author1-first=Richard|author1-last=Taruskin|author1-link=Richard Taruskin|publisher=University of California Press|year=2016|isbn=9780520288089|chapter=The ghetto and the imperium}}
  • {{cite book|title=Music and the Elusive Revolution: Cultural Politics and Political Culture in France, 1968–1981|volume=12|series=California Studies in 20th-Century Music|author1-first=Eric|author1-last=Drott|publisher=University of California Press|year=2011|isbn=9780520950085}}

{{refend}}