Page:Charles Emil Ruthenberg - Speeches and Writings (1928).djvu/11



To speak of the development of the American Communist movement is to speak of the role of C. E. Ruthenberg in the class struggle in the United States. Ruthenberg was the outstanding founder and the leader of the Communist Party in the most powerful imperialist country.

Ruthenberg was anathema to the bourgeoisie. To them his name and deeds are synonymous with all that the conscious, courageous, revolutionary workers, following the path of Marx and Lenin, are thinking and doing throughout the world. That is why Ruthenberg was the most feared and hated communist in the country.

Lenin once wrote: "The Communists of America prove by their long prison terms to which the bourgeoisie sentence them for communist agitation and propaganda, what capitalist democracy really means. They are tearing the masks from it and are exposing it as a reign of trust kings and speculators amid the subjection of the masses." Truly, no one symbolized this truth uttered by Lenin more than Ruthenberg did. He was thus often spoken of as the most arrested man in America.

What makes Ruthenberg a revolutionary figure of paramount importance is not merely his tremendous abilities as shown in his service in the class war against the American capitalist class, but the devotion, self-sacrifice, courage and Leninist clarity characterizing his activities. Ruthenberg always emphasized the rôle of the Party as the only revolutionary leader of the working class.

Characteristic of his fighting spirit is his statement in 1920 to the New York Court sentencing him to from five to ten years in Sing Sing Prison: "I have merely this to say for myself. I have in the past held certain