Workers of the world, unite!
Encyclopedia
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: "Proletarier aller Länder vereinigt Euch!", literally "Proletarians
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
of all countries, unite!") is one of the most famous rallying cries of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, found in The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party is a short 1848 publication written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the...
(1848), by Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
. A variation ("Workers of all lands, unite") is also inscribed on Marx's tombstone.
This slogan was the USSR State motto (Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! Proletariy vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes
Coat of arms of the Soviet Union
The State Emblem of the Soviet Union was adopted in 1923 and was used until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Although it technically is an emblem rather than a coat of arms, since it does not follow heraldic rules, in Russian it is called герб , the word used for a traditional coat of...
, on 1919 Russian SFSR banknotes (in German, French, Chinese, English, and Arabic) and in most Soviet newspapers. Contemporarily, some socialist and communist parties continue using it. Moreover, it is a common usage in popular culture, often chanted during labour strikes and protests
Variations
In the first Swedish languageSwedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
translation of the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, the translator Pehr Götrek
Pehr Götrek
Pehr Götrek was an early Swedish Christian communist. He was also a teetotaler and a vegetarian.Götrek was a teacher, a book printer and also kept an antiquarian bookshop in Stockholm...
substituted the slogan for Folkets röst, Guds röst! (i.e. "Vox populi, vox Dei", or "The Voice of the People, the Voice of God"). Later translations have, however, included the original slogan.
Amongst Maoist
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
-oriented groups a variation invented by Lenin, 'Workers and Oppressed Peoples and Nations of the World, Unite!', is sometimes used. This slogan was the rallying cry of the 2nd Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
congress in 1920, and denoted the anti-Imperialist
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
and anti-Colonialist
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
agenda of the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
.
Non-English usage
This phrase has been translated into many languages. All of the Soviet Socialist Republics in the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
had it as their motto translated into the local languages. An extensive list of such translations is available at Wiktionary.
See also
- From each according to his ability, to each according to his needFrom each according to his ability, to each according to his needFrom each according to his ability, to each according to his need is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. In German, "Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!"...
- Labour movementLabour movementThe term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
- Proletarian internationalismProletarian internationalismProletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
- Social PatriotismSocial PatriotismSocial Patriotism is an openly patriotic standpoint which combines patriotism with socialism. It was first identified at the outset of the First World War when a majority of Social Democrats opted to support the war efforts of their respective governments and abandoned socialist internationalism...
- Stateless communismStateless communismStateless communism, also known as pure communism, is the post-capitalist stage of society which Karl Marx predicted would inevitably result from the development of the productive forces...
- World communismWorld communismWorld communism, also known as international communism or global communism, is the terminal stage of development of the history of communism in Marxist theory. It has also usually been equated to the Comintern . This is the meaning that typically and historically has been meant by opponents of...
- World revolutionWorld revolutionWorld revolution is the Marxist concept of overthrowing capitalism in all countries through the conscious revolutionary action of the organized working class...