The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-04-25

AhO1AlNilOClS anu AOl41i clOG NlSlN
COMRADES! A sad duty was thrust
upon me to express before you the
sharp pain which the sudden and
untimely death of Comrades Mac
Manus and Charles f. Ruthenberg
evoked in the executive committee
of the Comintern and in the entire
Communist International. The i'm
| portance of these comrades has far
/ transcribed the borders of their
homeland and parties, and therefore
their death is a keenly felt loss for
the entire Communist international.
MACMANUS and Ruthenberg were
IVA not accidental men in the revolu-
tionary Communist movement, al
though their passing over to Com
munism conceded with the revolu-
tionary wave which gripped consider
able strata of the English and North
American proletariat at the end of
the imperialist war. This came about
not as a result of their sentiment,
but as an inevitable and logical con-
sequence of their theological and poll
teal evolution. Prior to the world
war, they participated in the labor
movement on the left wing of the
social democracy and always con-
Quoted a stubborn struggle against
reformism and opportunism. At the
time of the war itself, they came out
determindedly against an alliance
with the bourgeoisie, and remained
irreconcilable enemies of social pa
triotism. MacManus and Ruthenberg
never betrayed the revolutionary
ideals Of the proletariat and never
betrayed the interests of the work
ers. Therefore, when the October
revolution opened up the era of the
international revolution, they natur-
ally and logically found themselves
in the ranks of the revolutionaries,
and began the propaganda of bolshe-
vism and the organization of Com
munist PARTIES
THE deceased comrades differed
from each other in the character
of their talents in the service of the
revolutionary proletariat. MacManus
was predominantly a propaganda,
and the extension of Communism
among the English proletariat is I'M
doubtedly due to his untiring and sys-
tematic work. Ruthenberg, on the
contrary, was first of all an organ
izer and political leader, and be-
cause of his talents as a leader, the
Workers Party of the U. S. A. has
put him forward on the post as its
first guide. But they had this in
common, that they were bound up
with indestructible ties with the work
ing masses whom they splendidly
understood and among whom they
grew up and that they firmly believed
in the victory of the proletarian revo-
luton and firmly marched together
with the Communist International
When the first revolutionary wave
which flared up Immediately after
the end of the war began to recede,
many of the accidental arrivals
in the Comintern passed into the
camp of the reformists, but MacMan-
us and Ruthenberg just at that mo-
ment unfolded colossal energies for
the final soldification of the Bolshevik
movement of their lands.
| HAVE pointed out that the role
and Importance of the deceased
comrades extended beyond the Dor
ders of their lands. They were active
workers not of their own parties
alone, but of the entire Communist
International. The specific gravity of
their personal participation in the
international work, increased together
with the growth of their own parties
and with the strengthening of the
world counter revolutionary role of the
bourgeoisie Of their lands. The work
of MacManus and Ruthenberg in the
Executive Committee of the COMM
tern of which they were members, was
not limited by far only by the interest
to the questions concerning immedi-
ately their own parties.