V. I.

Lenin

1913

EUGÈNE POTTIER

THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH

In November of last year—1912—it was twenty-five years since the death of the French worker-poet, Eugène
Pottier, author of the famous proletarian song, the Internationale (“Arise ye starvelings from your slumbers”,
etc.).

This song has been translated into all European and other languages. In whatever country a class-conscious
worker finds himself, wherever fate may cast him, however
much he may feel himself a stranger, without language, without friends, far from his native country—he can find
himself comrades and friends by the familiar refrain of
the Internationale .

The workers of all countries have adopted the song of their foremost fighter, the proletarian poet, and have made
it the world-wide song of the proletariat.

And so the workers of all countries now honour the memory of Eugène Pottier. His wife and daughter are still
alive and living in poverty, as the author of the Internationale lived all his life. He was born in Paris on
October 4, 1816. He was 14 when he composed his first song,
and it was called: Long Live Liberty! In 1848 he was a fighter on the barricades in the workers’ great battle against
the bourgeoisie.

Pottier was born into a poor family, and all his life remained a poor man, a proletarian, earning his bread as
a packer and later by tracing patterns on fabrics.

From 1840 onwards, he responded to all great events in the life of France with militant songs, awakening the
consciousness of the backward, calling on the workers to unite, castigating the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois
governments of France.

In the days of the great Paris Commune (1871), Pottier was elected a member. Of the 3,600 votes cast, he received
3,352. He took part in all the activities of the Commune,
that first proletarian government.

The fall of the Commune forced Pottier to flee to England,
and then to America. His famous song, the Internationale ,
was written in June 1871 —you might say, the day after the bloody defeat in May.

The Commune was crushed—but Pottier’s Internationale spread its ideas throughout the world, and it is now more
alive than ever before.

In 1876, in exile, Pottier wrote a poem, The Workingmen of America to the Workingmen of France . In it he described
the life of workers under the yoke of capitalism, their
poverty, their back-breaking toil, their exploitation, and
their firm confidence in the coming victory of their cause.

It was only nine years after the Commune that Pottier returned to France, where he at once joined the Workers’
Party. The first volume of his verse was published in 1884,
the second volume, entitled Revolutionary Songs , came out in 1887.

A number of other songs by the worker-poet were published
after his death.

On November 8, 1887, the workers of Paris carried the remains of Eugène Pottier to the Père Lachaise cemetery,
where the executed Communards are buried. The police savagely attacked the crowd in an effort to snatch the
red banner. A vast crowd took part in the civic funeral.
On all sides there were shouts of “Long live Pottier!”

Pottier died in poverty. But he left a memorial which is truly more enduring than the handiwork of man. He was
one of the greatest propagandists by song . When he was
composing his first song, the number of worker socialists
ran to tens, at most. Eugène Pottier’s historic song is now
known to tens of millions of proletarians.