(Dedicated to the 100th anniversary of THE WORKERS ' ANTHEM)

When the melody of the International sounds full of grandeur and anger, revolutionary pathos and conviction, when the rebellious call "Get up, branded with a curse" takes off, you can't help but feel an unshakable faith in the harsh truth of these words. The anthem, created by the revolutionary poet Eugene Potier and the working-class composer Pierre Deguiter, has been calling the class whose ideas they represented to fight and win for almost 100 years. This appeal was born in the breast of E. Potier in the days when mournful songs were born about the Paris Commune shot by the brutalized Versaillese, about the victims of Satori and Pere Lachaise, about tens of thousands of convicts of Noumea and Cayenne. But the man who "was both a soldier and a poet of the revolution" (as E. Potier was called by his comrades in the struggle in the appeal to the Parisian workers on the occasion of his death), found other words:

The whole world of violence we will destroy
To the base, and then
We are ours, we will build a new world,
He who was nothing will become everything.
"We don't hear any more talk about socialism, and that's fine! Now we have got rid of socialism, "the executioner of the Commune, Thiers, confidently declared after the May "bloody week" of 1871. This is not what E. Potier thought. A man who fought on the barricades during the famous June uprising of the Paris proletariat in 1848; who, during the December coup of Louis Bonaparte, escaped persecution by pure chance; who, at the age of 55, again took up arms with thousands of other communards - such a man could not believe in the destruction of the ideas of socialism. The class consciousness of the proletariat, its unity and strength grew before the eyes of E. Potier. After the publication of the Communist Manifesto and other Marxist program documents, after the revolutions of 1848-1849 in Europe, and after the creation of the First International, the ideas of socialism spread more widely across the continent, capturing the minds of workers. He was also a chronicler of the working-class movement in France, reflecting in his songs the painful and complex process of its formation, overcoming petty-bourgeois illusions, the awareness of the working class of its own, purely proletarian interests, its great historical mission.

The future author of the International was born in 1816 in the family of a packer worker. Having started working at the workshop at the age of 13, he knew by this time many of the songs of his idol Beranger by heart, and in the days of the July revolution of 1830, he sang "his first song to the accompaniment of the last shots of the Swiss during the capture of the Louvre. The chorus of the song, of course, was " Long live Freedom!"1 . The first song was followed by others. Soon their small collection "Young Muse"2 was released . Later, Potier tried out the profession of a class supervisor, clerk in a stationery store. He then opens his own art workshop. Throughout this time, E. Potier continues to compose songs.

The principles of scientific socialism, which were increasingly making their way to the minds of the working people, could not fail to capture E. Potier. In 1869, five years after the creation of Karl Marx and Fr. Engels of the International Workers ' Association, E. Potier organizes a trade union - Syndical Chamber-from the draughtsmen employed in the Paris art workshops, and introduces 500 new members to the First International. In June 1870, colleagues elected E. Potier chairman of the Syndical Chamber, the premises of which were located in his office.

1 E. Potier to P. Lafargou, May 29, 1889. Cit. by: "Eugene Potier-the creator of the anthem "International". Moscow, 1966, p. 17.

2 Ibid., p. 18.

page 205

"My participation in the International movement," E. Potier later recalled, " was due to the fact that during the siege I was elected to the Vigilance Committee of the second Arrondissement, and then as a delegate to Cordery . Hence my election as a member of the Commune. " 4
The summer of 1870 was spent in France under the sign of the inevitable approaching war. Napoleon III's entourage saw it as a way to end the impending revolution and strengthen the Bonapartist monarchy. On July 12, the voice of the members of the International - Cameline, Tholen, and E. Potier-is heard from the pages of the newspaper "Le Rappel". On behalf of the Federation of Parisian Sections of the International Workers 'Association, they call:" Workers of France, Germany, Spain! Let your voices join in a common cry of condemnation of the war ... " 5. The outbreak of the war quickly exposed the essence of the rotten regime of the Second Empire. The series of defeats of the French army ended on September 2, 1870 with the Sedan catastrophe. Napoleon III, along with 80 thousand soldiers and officers, surrendered. Bismarck's army was approaching the French capital. These days, E. Potier writes the poem " Paris, defend yourself!":

Led the empire to defeat
To a dead end-to a broken trough.
Get up! Meet the enemy with a core!
Paris, create a defense for yourself!
Popular anger sweeps away the empire. However, the proclamation of the republic in France on September 4 and the creation of the Government of National Defense did not change much in the country. According to Karl Marx, "this republic has not overthrown the throne, it has only occupied the empty place it left behind." 6 The treacherous policy of the government, aptly dubbed the "government of national treason" by the people, and its attempts to secretly conspire with the Prussians are actively opposed by the working people of Paris. In September 1870, the district vigilance committees established in the city nominated their representatives to the Central Republican Committee of 20 districts. The committee, to which E. Potier was soon elected from the second arrondissement, develops a manifesto, demanding that the government hold municipal elections, elective courts, complete freedom of the press, assembly and association, arm all citizens and send commissioners to all Departments in order to raise the population of the provinces to fight the enemy. 7 However, the government, which inherited from the empire "not only a pile of ruins, but also its fear of the working class" 8, refuses to accept these demands.

After the unsuccessful uprising of the proletariat on January 22, 1871, which demanded the overthrow of the government and the creation of a Commune, many of its participants were arrested, all clubs were closed, and people's meetings were banned. However, the National Guard, which was based on the armed workers and artisans of Paris, retained its strength. Its Central Committee also included E. Potier. On March 18, 1871, the bourgeois-republican government of Thiers was overthrown, and 10 days later the Commune was proclaimed in Paris. The poet cannot stand aside when events of the greatest historical significance take place before his eyes. The class whose sufferings and struggles he had sung, whose liberation he had long dreamed of, finally took power into its own hands. Despite his age, the poet plunges headlong into his work. He was not only a delegate to the Committee of Vigilance of the second Arrondissement, a member of the Central Committee of the National Guard, a member of the Commune who, by his own admission, served as mayor in the Paris quarter of the Bourse, but also a member of a number of commissions created by the Commune.

From the very first days of its existence, the Commune vigorously undertook social transformation. E. Potier devotes a lot of time and effort to this creative work. The Commune has repeatedly appealed to his experience and authority. On April 14, for example, a meeting of 400 Parisian artists representing all types of art was held in the building of the Medical School. G. Courbet was the chairman, and E. Potier was on the presidium. As reported by the newspaper "Le Journal officiel", he at the beginning of for-

3 Cordery Square in Paris, the meeting place of the Paris sections of the First International and the Federation of Workers ' Societies in 1869-1870.

4 E. Potier - P. Lafargou. Cit. by: "Eugene Potier-creator of the anthem "Internationale", p. 22.

5 M. Shuri. Commune in the heart of Paris, Moscow 1970, pp. 62-63.

6 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 17, p. 280.

7 See: M. Shuri. Op. ed., pp. 84-85.

8 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 17, p. 280.

page 206

sedania read out "a report prepared and edited by the preparatory commission"; it is necessary to entrust the artists themselves with the care of their interests - this is the main idea of the report; it was about the creation of the Federation of Artists of Paris. On April 17, the elections of the Federal Commission were held in the antique hall of the Louvre. It included 47 members, and among the ten representatives of decorative arts was E. Potier. His signature, along with others, is attached to the program document of the commission, which entrusted the Committee chosen by it with the supervision and protection of monuments, museums, art galleries, libraries and art collections, organization of exhibitions, teaching in art schools, etc .9
Minutes of the Commune meetings recorded a number of speeches by E. Potier. On May 4, when discussing the issue of requisitioning abandoned workshops and putting them in the hands of workers, he suggested opening new workshops "to provide citizens with as much work as they want." 10 Reporting at one of the meetings on the situation at the front, E. Potier shows excellent awareness here as well. "I have made a thorough survey of the most threatened points, Asnieres and Levalois," he told the Commune, " and I declare that the situation there is not hopeless; it is not even bad. Our forces there are almost large enough, and they are in good condition. " 11
On May 6, a poster appeared in the second district proclaiming the introduction of secular education in accordance with the program of the communal delegation. One of the authors of this document was E. Potier. "Secular, free and compulsory education," it said, " is the program that the revolution must adhere to; this is also the program of the municipal delegation of the second district." Stating further that their goal is also to prepare each child to master one or two professions, the program's authors emphasized :" We will make every effort to achieve this result, because the highest achievement of human progress lies entirely in simple words: work of all for all. It is essential that humanity strictly observe this covenant, like a primitive society, which is the basis of all true equality: "He who does not work does not eat" 12 .

The diverse activities of E. Potier during the Commune confirm the validity of the words spoken about him later by the famous French writer, a colleague of the poet in the Commune, J. Potier. Wallace: "This is an old comrade, a comrade from the great days. He worked during the Commune..."Yes, the poet worked in those glorious days, tirelessly and selflessly. And when treachery opened the gates of Paris to the Versaillians, an old barricade fighter led the defense. "When the Versaillese joined and after the capture of the City Hall," E. Potier recalled, "I moved to the XI arrondissement, where I spent the last days of the struggle together with Ferret, Lefranc, Vaillant, Varlin and Delecluze..." 13 .

Unknown friends then sheltered E. Potier from the massacre of the distraught Versaillese. But the death of hundreds of comrades did not extinguish in the poet's heart the belief in the ultimate triumph of the cause of the Commune. He saw what the working class was capable of when it took power into its own hands. I saw his inexhaustible enthusiasm, colossal craving for creation, awakened creative initiative. The germs of the new society, which was being created on the ruins of the old one and was being busily and energetically managed by "dictators in rags", could no longer be trampled underfoot. E. Potier did not know that on the day when he, together with the last surviving comrades, defended the barricades of the XI arrondissement, Karl Marx, speaking at a meeting of the General Council of the International, said:: "If the Commune is defeated, the struggle will only be delayed. The principles of the Commune are eternal and cannot be destroyed; they will assert themselves again and again until the working class achieves emancipation. " 14 But it was also clear to E. Potier himself that " The Commune's mark is indelible." That is why the Internationale, written by him in the Paris underground in those tragic days of June 1871, is full not of pain, but of anger, not of sorrow, but of the belief that the blood of the fallen has not been shed in vain: the last and decisive battle is coming, the fate of the current executioners is decided, the future belongs to the workers of the "world great army of labor".

In 1887, 16 years after the Commune,

9 M. Shuri. Op. ed., p. 350.

10 "Minutes of the meetings of the Paris Commune of 1871", vol. 2, Moscow, 1960, pp. 120, 125.

11 Ibid., vol. 1, Moscow, 1959, p. 418.

12 Ibid., pp. 332-333.

13 E. Potier - P. Lafargou. Cit. by: "Eugene Potier-creator of the anthem "Internationale", p. 23.

14 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 17, p. 629.

page 207

The text of the " International "was first published in the collection of E. Potier "Revolutionary Songs". A year later, P. Deguiter, a Belgian worker-composer, met him .15 He put the words of the anthem to music. In 1888, the future Proletarian anthem was first performed at the Printers 'festival in Lille by an amateur workers' choir. The organizers of the festival published a text with notes in the form of a leaflet with a circulation of 6 thousand copies. And the song's triumphant march across the Land began. "The commune has been suppressed," Lenin wrote in 1913, " and Potier's Internationale has spread its ideas all over the world, and it is now more alive than ever." The author of the proletarian hymn "left behind a truly uncreated monument" 16 .

15 For the author of the music for the International, Pierre Deguiter, and the Russian translations of the Proletarian hymn, see E. Potier. Songs, poems, poems. Moscow, 1966, pp. 28-31; P. F. Lebedev. From the history of the national anthem "International". Voprosy Istorii, 1967, No. 1, pp. 208-212.

16 V. I. Lenin. PSS Vol. 22, p. 274.

page 208

Permanent link to this publication: