Battle Hymn of the Revolution

The "Battle Hymn of the Revolution", also known as "Solidarity Forever", is the co-official state anthem of the Union of American Socialist Republics, alongside the Internationale. Based on the popular Union Hymn and revolutionary song, Solidarity Forever (composed by Ralph Chaplin in 1915), the song is sung to the tune that most Americans of the early Second Republic would associate with John Brown's Body or The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the latter itself being a patriotic American song and rallying call during the Slavers' War, and the former remaining prominent (as the anthem of the American Workers' And Farmers' Revolutionary Army) to this day.

The Battle Hymn of the Revolution was officially adapted by the All-Union Congress Of Soviets of the United Republics on 12 February 1939, following a number of past instances of confusion caused at international events (including the 1936 Olympics) by the Internationale simultaneously being played as the anthem of the many newly socialist states in the Comintern. Although ostensibly being a modified version of "Solidarity Forever", the revised anthem also contains a number of elements from its two other antecedents; John Brown's Body and the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Lyrics
The version of the anthem inscribed below is an adaptation of a version of Ralph Chaplin's classic union hymn, Solidarity Forever, revised by committee in 1939 by the Congress of Soviets of the United Republics:

Officially adopted version (1939)
The red dawn rises like a thundering call,

It sounds like a clarion for the benefit of us all,

With every step we take, let us fight to make men free,

While the Union marches on!

(Chorus)

Solidarity forever,

Solidarity forever,

Solidarity forever,

While the Union marches on!

The light of liberty shines brightly here,

And the imperialist bastards shake and scream with fear,

So long as we stand together, we can kill to make men free,

While the Union marches on!

(Chorus)

As we march through the fires, our struggle carries on

Through the darkness of the night, we await a brand new dawn,

Should the night continue, let us die to make men free,

While the Union marches on!

(Chorus)

You soldiers of freedom, then strike, while strike you may,

The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,

For the dawn of old Norm Thomas has brightened into a new day,

And the Union marches on!

As one can observe, numerous parts of the anthem indubitably evoke certain excerpts and verses of its forerunners. In spite of sharing a chorus with the original version Solidarity Forever, it is evident that the anthem is clearly far more belligerent and aggressive than the former, which was largely a defensive call for Solidarity in the face of the barbarous exploitation of the massive monopolies that characterized the Late Second Republic. In contrast, Battle Hymn of the Revolution is a call to arms, more reminiscent of Battle Hymn of the Republic in that it calls for the liberation of a supposedly oppressed people. One notable difference that Battle Hymn of the Revolution has with Battle Hymn of the Republic and John Brown's Body is that it places the onus of liberation on the working masses themselves, in contrast to the former two ascribing the same to God and Brown respectively. Scholars have also noted the resemblances between the third verse of Revolution and the last one of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Even more evident is the last verse of Revolution, which is almost entirely a carbon-copy of John Brown's Body, merely replacing Brown's name for Norman Thomas. The Union that is repeatedly referred to in Revolution has been inferred to mean a variety of things, ranging from an Industrial Union a lá the IWSU to the the Union of American Socialist Republics in particular, or the Communist International in general. The term Union has also been inferred to be evocative of the struggle of the Lincolnite United States against the renegade Slavers' secession in the Slavers' War.