The Workers’ Marseillaise

The Workers’ Marseillaise was a Russian revolutionary anthem first written and set to the tune of the French Marseillaise in 1875. It proved extremely popular and was sung frequently during the Revolution of 1905; famously, Maxim Gorky wrote of it in his 1906 novel “Mother”:

“In this song there was nothing from the old, slavish world. It floated along directly, evenly; it proclaimed an iron virility, a calm threat. Simple, clear, it swept the people after it along an endless path leading to the far distant future; and it spoke frankly about the hardships of the way. In its steady fire a heavy clod seemed to burn and melt—the sufferings they had endured, the dark load of their habitual feelings, their cursed dread of what was coming.”

Subsequently, it served as a temporary national anthem for the new government after the February Revolution in 1917. After the October Revolution, it slowly fell out of use, and by 1918 it was entirely replaced as an anthem by the Internationale.

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Lyrics

Отречёмся от старого мира!
Отряхнем его прах с наших ног!
Нам не нужно златого кумира;
Ненавистен нам царский чертог!
Царю нужны для войска солдаты,
Подавайте ему сыновей;
Царю нужны дворцы и палаты,
Подавай ему крови своей:

Вставай, подымайся, рабочий народ!
Вставай на врага, люд голодный!
Раздайся, клич мести народной:
Вперёд! Вперёд! Вперёд! Вперёд! Вперёд!

Кулаки-богачи жадной сворой
Расхищают тяжёлый твой труд.
Твоим потом жиреют обжоры,
Твой последний кусок они рвут.
Не довольно ли вечного горя?
Встанем, братья, повсюду зараз —
От Днепра и до Белого моря.
И Поволжье, и Дальний Кавказ —

Вставай, подымайся, рабочий народ!
Вставай на врага, люд голодный!
Раздайся, клич мести народной!
Вперёд! Вперёд! Вперёд! Вперёд! Вперёд!

И взойдёт за кровавой зарёю
Солнце правды и братской любви,
Хоть купили мы страшной ценою —
Кровью нашею — счастье земли.
И настанет година свободы:
За эпохой кровавой борьбы,
И сольются в едином народы
В царстве славы, труда и борьбы!

English translation

Let us renounce the old world!
Let us shake away its dust from our feet!
Needless to us is a golden idol;
Loathsome to us are Tsarist palaces!
For the Tsar armies of soldiers are necessary:
Give him your sons;
For the Tsar palaces and halls are necessary:
Give him your blood!

Arise, awaken, working people!
Arise against the enemy, hungry folk!
Ring out, cry of the people’s vengeance!
Forward! Forward! Forward! Forward! Forward!

The kulaks-wealthy ones of greedy packs
plunder your hard work.
With it the gluttons then fatten themselves;
they tear apart your last piece of bread.
Is it not enough of eternal misery?
Let us arise, brothers, everywhere at once —
from the Dneiper unto the White Sea,
and the Cisvolga, and the far Caucasus —

Arise, awaken, working people!
Arise against the enemy, hungry folk!
Ring out, cry of the people’s vengeance!
Forward! Forward! Forward! Forward! Forward!

And for a bloody dawn there rises
the sun of truth and brotherly love,
although we bought it with a terrible price —
our blood for the happiness of the Earth.
And the time of freedom will arrive
in an epoch of bloody battle,
and nations will unite into one
in the tsardom of glory, labour, and struggle!

Arise, awaken, working people!
Arise against the enemy, hungry folk!
Ring out, cry of the people’s vengeance!
Forward! Forward! Forward! Forward! Forward!

Thanks to Advesperation for the upload and the annotation.