The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-03-02
&C. E. y

For buried in his boyhood past Charles Emil Ruth
enberg dsiked his first and therefore was known to
hundred thousand American workers by the simple
designation &C E."
Those of who knew loved him eader-which
for the entire Communist Parnever had impression
of soness about &c e. He the sharp fighting edge OF an
battle times this hardness too pleas
ant for those comrades against whom for some w or error IN
party work. became necessary for Ruhenbeg official
tive of the Party to bring bear the party discipline But the
peculiar thing is that always knew that matter what the
conditions the actions of Ruhenbeg purely and simply the
actions of the Party He had other motives than party mo-
ves certainly his political life and those who lived and work
ed by his side these many years find hard recall any
phase of his personal life where any motives governed him
cept those of the revolutionary labor movement
1t this quality of &C. E. which made it possible for
him play many times the function of arber in the little and
big rctons which inevitably light the of for
nation and maturing of the revolutionary party.
Not that Ruthenberg himself in controversy in
the Party On the contrary many times he the most active
leader sharp internal fights beginning with the first days in
the formation of the left wing in the socialist party in the
period of struggle over the egazaon of the Communist Party
the many questions relating to forms and meth
DDS of work of the mature Communist party
The whole history of the development of what used to be
called revolutionary socialism, and what called the Com
muns Movement also the history Of the life of Charles Emil
Ruthenberg 1t became impossible for any who knew him to
think him separate and apart from the Communist movement
in the political and the organizaona Nor was
possible to think OF the Communist Party as separate from y
Ruthenberg seemed tho there organic connection
and the thousands who composed the party
Ruthenberg has often been compared with Deb and there
is some reason doing There always deep mutual
respect between these two but to fail to note the differences be-
tween them would be to miss whole historical epoch in the de-
yeopment labor Debs the old
Ruhenberg the the revolutionary horizon when
The great day when the first Socialist Republic sprang
social in 1917 then the grand old Debs could
say the of my head to the soles of feet
Bolshev" took younger with clearer revolutionary
understanding to BE- and not merely to speak of himself
the Bolshevik
Debs with honor to himself, identified homo
eneou part the socialist party leadership which betrayed the
of this country by apparent concessions toward
the Communist International only to lead them back into the
Schedeman international of treason But Deb symbozed the
semi MARKHAM culture of generation the confused
theology mixed with proetarian revolutionary emotions which
regned the prares of this big undeveoped country
growing the big strikes of the eighties and nnetes and also
partly out of the reform movements of that time
Ruthenberg the embodiment of phase of proe
development Of sharp, ruthless logical mentality his
powerful emotional impulse toward the revolutionary movement
wasted in confusion He capable of growth he
capable of scientific MARKHAM analysis in the field of theory and
practice where Debs was lost.
that the history of the American proarian
oution write big the of Ruthenbergof &c E.
Thus the work that by Ruthenberg marks
big struggles of the American workers. in the big fight of the
against bosses and bureaucra against capitalism
for the powerful labor movement which will finally
When Comrade Bukharn representing the Communist
international placed his ashes in the Wall the Kemn
the Red Army fired the last farewell salute the
mony of binding the American proetarat to the Union
Of Socialist Soviet Republics.