The Internationale and shooting your own generals

[FridgeMagnet]

A thread in the Sports forum mentioned this verse of the Internationale, at least in the English translation:

No more deluded by reaction,
On tyrants only we'll make war!
The soldiers too will take strike action,
They'll break ranks and fight no more!
And if those cannibals keep trying,
To sacrifice us to their pride,
They soon shall hear the bullets flying,
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

Now, I'm right in thinking that this was the official anthem of the USSR until 1944, am I not? (or at least not embarrassingly wrong) Was this verse present in the Russian version used? On the Wikipedia page, it doesn't seem to be in it, and I see a reference indicating that it wasn't approved of by Moscow:

The anti-militarist stanza in Pottier's original lyrics was officially forbidden by Moscow to all members of the French Communist Party in 1935, in order not to displease the Army.

If it _was_ present, I think it would be the only instance of a national anthem involving an explicit threat to the generals of that nation if they don't behave, which is the sort of thing that makes me doubt that it made it.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

I have no idea actually, but that the fact that it was replaced as the official national Soviet anthem makes me wonder if it was.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

That made me suspicious too, but there are claims (1, 2) that the Hymn Of The Soviet Union was deliberately introduced because it was felt soldiers responded better to nationalist sentiments than internationalist:

In 1944 Stalin replaced it with the "Hymn of the Soviet Union" for reasons of morale -- battlefield reports indicated soldiers were more willing to die for Mother Russia than for an international working class.

Whether this means that the soldiers preferred it, or the rulers preferred it, I don't know, but it's a motivation other than "oops we left a verse in by accident".