Eugène Edme Pottier was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 revolution

Revolution

A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...

ary socialist

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

, poet, and transport worker.

Pottier was elected a member of the Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 municipal council - the Paris Commune

Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...

, in March 1871. During the Commune he wrote the poem L'Internationale which became the International Workingmen's Association

International Workingmen's Association

The International Workingmen's Association , sometimes called the First International, was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class...

 anthem during its last years (1871–1876), and has been used by most socialist and leftist political international

Political international

A political international is a trans-national organisation of political parties or activists. The international works together on points of agreement to co-ordinate activity....

s since.

Fifteen years after the Communards were crushed in blood by the Versaillais (1871), Eugene Pottier dedicated the following hymn to their revolution: (From a piece by Benoît Bréville and Dominique Vidal in le Monde Diplomatique,>

On l'a tuée à coups de chassepot,

A coups de mitrailleuse,

Et roulée avec son drapeau

Dans la terre argileuse.

Et la tourbe des bourreaux gras

Se croyait la plus forte.

Tout ça n'empêche pas, Nicolas

Qu'la Commune n'est pas morte.




A very poor translation of which is:




They killed her with their chassepot,

With their machine guns,

And rolled her with its flag

In the clay.

And the mud of the fat hangmen

thought they had prevailed.

And with all that, Nicolas,

The Commune is not dead.

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