Verse

Workers of the World, Awaken!

Workers of the world, awaken! Break your chains. demand your rights. All the wealth you make is taken By exploiting parasites. Shall you kneel in deep submission From your cradles to your graves? ls the height of your ambition To be good and willing slaves? CHORUS: Arise, ye prisoners of starvation! Fight for your own emancipation; Arise, ye slaves of every nation. In One Union grand. Our little ones for bread are crying, And millions are from hunger dying; The end the means is justifying, 'Tis the final stand. If the workers take a notion, They can stop all speeding trains; Every ship upon...

Workers of the World, Awaken!

Workers of the world, awaken! Break your chains. demand your rights. All the wealth you make is taken By exploiting parasites. Shall you kneel in deep submission From your cradles to your graves? ls the height of your ambition To be good and willing slaves? CHORUS: Arise, ye prisoners of starvation! Fight for your own emancipation; Arise, ye slaves of every nation. In One Union grand. Our little ones for bread are crying, And millions are from hunger dying; The end the means is justifying, 'Tis the final stand. If the workers take a notion, They can stop all speeding trains; Every ship upon...

The Day Is Coming

Come hither, lads, and hearken, for a tale there is to tell, Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all shall be better than well. And the tale shall be told of a country, a land in the midst of the sea, And folk shall call it England in the days that are going to be. There more than one in a thousand in the days that are yet to come Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the ancient home. For then--laugh not, but listen to this strange tale of mine - All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than swine. Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deeds of his...

Rosa, Karl 1919

We can say: Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, You are no longer in the circle Of the living But you are present amongst us, We sense your mighty spirit, We will fight under your banner, Our fighting ranks shall be covered By your moral grandeur! And each of us swears If the hour comes, If the revolution demands it, To perish without trembling Under the same banner As that under which you perished. Trotsky, speaking just after the deaths of Karl Liebnecht and Rosa Luxemburg, in January 1919. The editing and typographical re-arrangement is ours. Click here for original speech on Marxist...

Frank Little, IWW organiser, lynched, 1917

Frank Little was an American trade unionist who, at the time of his death, sat on the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World. He was lynched in 1917 by six masked vigilantes; his “crime” was organising workers and denouncing the government in his speeches, calling US troops “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniform”. Little was born in 1879 and, before joining the IWW in 1906, organised the Western Federation of Miners. He became heavily involved in campaigning for free speech rights in several places, most notably in Missoula where Little was arrested for making a speech on a...

To Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg

They slew you in their beastly rage. Because you dared the struggle wage With tyrants and with traitors too — The traitors feared and so they slew. Deluded knaves! Your lifeless tongues More potent now in martyr songs Will trumpet forth the truth until, The very earth will rock and thrill; And thrones and states will crash and fall — And labour triumph over all. * * So comrades, sleep - your work is done; Sleep on! The battle will be won.

August 4th 1914: The First World War

Go fight, you fools! Tear up the earth with strife And1 spill each others guts upon the field; Serve unto death the men you served in in life So that their wide dominions may not yield. Stand by the flag—the lie that still al- lures ; Lay down your lives for land you do not own, And give unto a war that is not yours Your gory tithe of mangled flesh and bone. But whether it be yours to fall or kill You must not question why nor where. You see the tiny crosses on that hill? It took all those to make one million- aire. The bugle screams, the cannons cease to roar. "Enough! enough! God give us...

Bread and Roses

As we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the day, A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill-lofts gray Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses, For the people hear us singing, "Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses." As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men— For they are women's children and we mother them again. Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes— Hearts starve as well as bodies; Give us Bread, but give us Roses!

Mourn Not the Dead

Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie— Dust unto dust— The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die As all men must; Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell— Too strong to strive— Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell, Buried alive; But rather mourn the apathetic throng— The cowed and the meek— Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong And dare not speak!

I AM THE PEOPLE, THE MOB

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napole- ons come from me and the Lincolns, They die. And I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns. I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget. Sometimes I...

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