The Internationale

Arise, all pris’ners of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the earth!
If you tremble with indignation,
Know a better world’s in birth!
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us.
Arise, all workers, stand up tall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations.
We have been naught; we shall be all!

[Chorus x2]
It’s the final struggle;
Let each take their place.
The international soc’list cause
Unites the human race.

We want no condescending saviors
To rule us from their judgement hall.
Labor is all that can free labor;
Let all decide for all.
To make the thieves give up their treasure,
To free the spirit from its cell,
Make no rev’lution by half measures;
To our class we pledge ourselves!

[Chorus x2]
It’s the final struggle;
Let each take their place.
The international soc’list cause
Unites the human race.

The state oppresses, and law deceives
Wage slaves taught to do as we’re told.
The rich are shameless tax-dodging cheats;
The poor’re left in the cold.
Too long we’ve languished in subjection;
Their laws equality indicts.
No rights without their obligations;
No obligations without rights.

[Chorus x2]
It’s the final struggle;
Let each take their place.
The international soc’list cause
Unites the human race.

From up on high, the parasites smirk,
The kings of tech and bank and land.
In what besides profit off our work
Have they ever had a hand?
The fruits of our labor lie tallied
In accounts’of the idle few.
Demanding it all, we do rally
Simply for what workers are due.

[Chorus x2]
It’s the final struggle;
Let each take their place.
The international soc’list cause
Unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction;
Among us peace, on tyrants war.
The soldiers too will take strike action;
They’ll break ranks and fight no more.
But if the warmong’ring fanatics
Insist still at their own peril,
Their troops will merely be pragmatic
And frag each bloodthirsty gen’ral.

[Chorus x2]
It’s the final struggle;
Let each take their place.
The international soc’list cause
Unites the human race.

We workers and oppressed, united
Together in a party, stand.
From a spark a flame ignited;
It’s our world, the workers’ of all lands.
On our flesh too long’ve fed the vultures,
But if those greedy birds of prey
Shall vanish from the sky some morning,
Then the sun will shine always.

[Chorus x2]
It’s the final struggle;
Let each take their place.
The international soc’list cause
Unites the human race.