Eugene Pottier 1886
Source: Eugène Pottier, Chants Révolutionnaires (second edition), Paris, Bureau de Comité Pottier, [n.d.];
Translated: by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2013.
For the survivors of the Bloody Week
They killed it with rifle shots,
with machine gun shots
and rolled it in its flag
into the clay-like earth.
And the mob of fat executioners
thought themselves the stronger,
but none of this changes anything,
Nicolas,
for the Commune isn’t dead!
Just as harvesters clear a field,
just as apples fall to earth,
the Versaillais massacred
at least a hundred thousand men.
And these hundred thousand murders,
See what they bring.
But none of this changes anything,
Nicolas,
for the Commune isn’t dead!
Though they killed Varlin,
Flourens, Duval, Millière,
Ferré, Rigault, Tony Moilin,
filling the cemeteries.
They thought they cut off its arms,
emptied its aorta.
But none of this changes anything,
Nicolas,
for the Commune isn’t dead!
They acted like bandits,
counting on silence.
They killed the wounded in their hospital beds,
and the blood,
flooding the sheets
flowed under the door.
But none of this changes anything,
Nicolas,
for the Commune isn’t dead!
Bought-off journalists,
merchants of slander
spread over our mass graves
their flood of ignominies.
Maxim Ducamp, Dumas
vomited up their booze.
but none of this changes anything,
Nicolas,
for the Commune isn’t dead!
It’s Damocles’ sword
That floats over their heads.
At Vallès’ funeral
they were made mute.
The fact is there were many of us
who served as his escort;
which proves, in any case
Nicolas,
that the Commune isn’t dead!
And so, all this proves to the fighters,
that Marianne’s skin is tanned;
she’s ready to fight and it’s time to cry out:
Long Live the Commune!
And this proves to all the Judases
that this is how things are,
and in a short while they'll know,
God damn!
That the Commune isn’t dead!
Paris, May 1886