Most broadly, this is obviously an anti-war song, in which war-weary soldiers on both sides of the barbed wire realize their common interests (and common class enemies), solidarize, mutiny and "come home" to take part in a revolutionary uprising against their ruling elites.
More specifically, the song is directly inspired by the powerful events and images towards the end of World War I, namely those of the mutinies and fraternization with "the enemy" signaling the insurrectionary mood which so colored the politics of the interwar period, those in Russia in 1917 and Germany in 1918-9 being arguably the most historically significant.
The final lines ("For the first time/The dark tide is ebbing/A mass of tired humanity drifting toward the dawn") really capture the sense of militant hope for the future that was felt in the post-war revolutionary upsurge of 1917-1921 following four years of imperialist slaughter.
Most broadly, this is obviously an anti-war song, in which war-weary soldiers on both sides of the barbed wire realize their common interests (and common class enemies), solidarize, mutiny and "come home" to take part in a revolutionary uprising against their ruling elites.
More specifically, the song is directly inspired by the powerful events and images towards the end of World War I, namely those of the mutinies and fraternization with "the enemy" signaling the insurrectionary mood which so colored the politics of the interwar period, those in Russia in 1917 and Germany in 1918-9 being arguably the most historically significant.
The final lines ("For the first time/The dark tide is ebbing/A mass of tired humanity drifting toward the dawn") really capture the sense of militant hope for the future that was felt in the post-war revolutionary upsurge of 1917-1921 following four years of imperialist slaughter.