Like “Solidarity Forever,” that fiery anthem of industrial warfare that today’s trade unions have betrayed but won’t give up (and which has been co-opted by bourgeois political parties looking to embellish their credentials), the revolutionary message of “the Internationale” was separated by a huge chasm from the practice and ideology of most of those who laid claim to it. That is, until Billy Bragg transformed it into a song that Social Democrats and reformed Stalinists could really relate to.
A comparison of Billy Bragg’s 1990 version with a 1910 English translation of a German version:
Billy Brag’s 1990 version of the Internationale
Stand up, all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might
Don’t cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing, if you have no rights
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and allChorus:
So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The Internationale
Unites the world in song
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place
The international ideal
Unites the human raceLet no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We’ll live together or we’ll die alone
In our world poisoned by exploitation
Those who have taken, now they must give
And end the vanity of nations
We’ve but one Earth on which to liveAnd so begins the final drama
In the streets and in the fields
We stand unbowed before their armour
We defy their guns and shields
When we fight, provoked by their aggression
Let us be inspired by like and love
For though they offer us concessions
Change will not come from above
Emil Luckhardt’s 1910 German Version, translated into English
Arise you damned of the earth,
you prisoners of starvation!
the right like a volcanic glow
is about to erupt with force.
Clean out the oppressor!
Arise, you army of slaves!
Bear your nullity no longer
Become everything–unite!Chorus:
Peoples, hear the signal!
Arise, for the last battle
The International
Fights for the Rights of Man!No higher being can save us,
No God, no Kaiser, nor tribune
Saving us from misery
we ourselves alone must do!
Empty phrase: “Rights of the poor!”
Empty phrase: “noblesse oblige!”
Dependent, servile they call us,
Bear that shame no longer now!Chorus
In town and country, you workers,
We are the strongest of parties.
Push the loafers aside!This world must be ours;
Our blood shall no more feed
the crows and mighty vultures!
Only when we’ve driven them out
will the sun forever shine!
Most of you will immediately recognize just how much of the original spirit of the song Bragg discarded in inventing his new version: all of it. For those of you who don’t understand that, here’s some comparisons.
First verse: By the end of the first verse, it’s already clear that Bragg’s version is more indebted to the ideology of Amnesty International and the likes of Naomi Klein than it is to the struggle of the working class. Thus, for Bragg it’s the “oppressed” who rise up rather than Luckhardt’s “army of slaves.” This difference might seem insignificant, but it’s essential to understanding Bragg’s version. Fundamentally, he’s not talking about a a revolution that would overturn the real foundation of oppression — the relation of labor to capital — but rather some kind of sing-along that leads to a greater appreciation of “freedom” in the abstract. This “respect” and “freedom enjoyed by one and all” somehow “makes the empires fall.” In reality, of course, it doesn’t. And in reality, freedom is just the ideological cloak of bourgeois exploitation, the ideological underpinning of bourgeois society. Freedom in this sense is the freedom of atomized citizens to exploit and be exploited as they please. It is, in Lenin’s phrase, “freedom for the slave owners.”
In contrast, Luckhardt’s first verse doesn’t flow quite as nicely, but it’s infinitely clearer. He rightly identifies the seizure of power as the way forward for the proletariat. The damned of the earth, the “prisoners of starvation,” are called upon to “arise.” The proletariat is identified not only as an exploited class, but a class that must and will fight against exploitation. Bragg, by contrast, echoes the Maoist slander that the Western proletariat has been “bought off” — and in in fact no longer exists as a class — by asking all of us, collectively, not to “cling so hard to your possessions.” Luckhardt calls for the workers to “clean out the oppressors” — Bragg calls for his middle-class audience to demand rights and respect, not for themselves, but presumably for their maids and the like.
Chorus: Luckhardt’s chorus invokes the imagery of an epoch-making showdown between the proletariat, united in The International, and the bourgeoisie. Bragg’s? Well, there’s some cozy language about brothers and sisters struggling (why bother with that “last battle” when you can have the activists’ joy of a life spent lashing out against chimeras?), singing, and the human race being united by a fuzzy kind of idealistic internationalism. Class distinctions are lost in Bragg — we’re left with “the human race” while in Luckhardt it’s clearly the working class that’s envisioned drawing together for its final, glorious assault on the citadels of capital.
Second verse: Luckhardt’s first lines in the second verse brilliantly recapitulates one of the central ideas of the working class, which led to the formation of the First International and guided its activities: the idea that, in Marx’s words, the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself
. This verse throws back in the face of reformism the “empty phrases” by which reformism attempts to pacify and derail the working class.
Bragg, unsurprisingly, latches on to just such empty phrases. “Let no one build walls to divide us” — after all, we have to be united in song. The rest of Bragg’s second verse is full of pablum about togetherness and unity — but it’s never clear to what end.
Final verses: Luckhardt concludes by painting the picture of the working class, united internationally, “pushing the loafers aside,” taking control of the world, and once and forever putting and end to capitalist war and exploitation. The sun shines forevermore.
Bragg, on the other hand, as a middle class activist, can’t imagine anything more hallowed than playing the hero, perpetually reenacting the feat of the Tienanmen man — “we stand unbowed before their armour.” There’s a fight — for what, we know not — but it’s only “provoked by their oppression.” This is a far cry from the embrace by Luckhardt, and the proletarian movement as a whole, of bold, strong action against the oppressors.
this is great comparison & gets to the heart of problems with billy bragg:
billy bragg is accepted by his audience so uncritically. he has some good songs & seemingly has good intentions socially & politically in broad sense. BUT he constantly makes glib, superficial & meaningless public statements on any given political or social topic from education to constitutional reform. even worse when on international tours he insists on lecturing those audiences about their own issues in a superficial manner, trust me i’ve seen it. yet despite his audience’s appreciation of his generalised sentiments, he’s rarely particularly well informed in any given area, & just offers the usual vacant terms, fascist/oppression/compassion & rarely has more to offer than a ‘we must do better’ vagueness. he wants to be more than a singer songwriter, ie an activist, but he lacks the substance or any clear ideas on how to transcend that role.
in reality his position is ill defined & vague, he has often assumed the rheotoric & imagery of radicalism but really his current position seems a fairly fuzzy centre left. is it seriously meaningful, or purposeful, to come out with statements opposing fascism in the 21st century, & even worse that term is never adequately defined or stable with bragg. bragg’s superficiality makes him easily digestable without too much thought. the audience can feel an inkling of insight or superiority to the bulk of popular culture, without having to address their own position too critically or the broader failings of the left, it’s all a bit fuzzy.
bragg has made some serious clunkers too. back in 1999 he was codemning the serb’s as the latest fascists in europe, drawing paralells to 1930′s continental europe & endorsing direct NATO action against serbia. however in 1999 the international ‘crisis’ bragg jumped upon was over kosovo, not the previous actions of ethnic serb militias in croatia & bosnia. kosovo was about the serb state proper & broader geopolitics, a distinction bragg never bothered to remark upon. ethnic albanians had been agitating for greater albania in kosovo throughout the 1980′s & with the serb state in moral & political freefall at the end of the nineties they saw a good opportunity, & increased their efforts. these were violent, not just against kosovar serbs, but against kosovar romas,jews & catholic albanians, & were designed to provoke response from an already pariah serbia. prior to 1999 the usa had listed the kla/ albanian militia as a terrorist organisation with links to arms/heroin trade & muslim extremists, but the usa abruptly changed tack, & applied heavy pressure on western allies to support kla. they did, result 78 day non stop rolling NATO bombing of serb state, and it’s forces. end result kosovo an independent state. however a closer look shows that kosovo today has the largest usa military base outside of usa, camp bondsteel, in central balkans close to russia, previously totally impossible given serb & russian links. furthermore independent kosovo now ensures a transoport route to adriatic sea for the new trans-balkan oil pipeline, the AMBO pipeline named after its builder and operator the usa registered albanian macedonian bulgarian oil corporation.
the point of above is that bragg lacks substance. he was quickly on board the no blood for oil approach on iraq, but competely lacked the insight or inclination to research the issue of kosovo & oil, at the time or retrospectively. indeed serbia & kosovo gave bragg the chance to drag out the simplistic fascist bogeyman again. bragg’s position on kosovo was essentially akin to his governments & rest of western powers & their media apparatus, all at usa’s behest for usa’s geopolitical advantage. this says a great deal about bragg’s lack of analysis & substance.
my final word on subject belongs to a friend. a friend who grew up in eastern europe oblivious to most western pop culture & certainly billy bragg. after seeing bragg accidentally on morning tv, she said of him, he is no better than bono, full of meaningless rheotoric that is as much about his profile as social commitment. ouch!