8/14/2019 An Open Challenge by Ruthenberg

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8/14/2019 An Open Challenge by Ruthenberg

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Ruthenberg: An Open Challenge2

munist movement will be met equally frankly atSt. Joseph. In part it has already been destroyedby the exposure of the disreputable Burns Detec-tive Agency and similar organizations, showingthat it is these private detective agencies that sup-

ply the violence.No Communist advocates the use of violencein the class struggle in the United States today.Communists have better sense. No Communisthas been convicted of an overt act of violence inthe united States.

What Communists are charged with is thecrime of telling historical truth. They have beenbold enough to say that the slave owners of theSouth did not give up the special economic privi-

leges which they enjoyed as a result of chattel sla-very without a resort to violence. They have toldthe historical truth that no privileged class has everyielded up its right to exploit and oppress withouta trial of strength outside of the formal rules ofthe struggle laid down by law, without a resort toforce and violence to protect its interests. It is alogical inference from this that the capitalist classwhich enjoys powers of oppression and exploita-

Published by 1000 Flowers Publishing, Corvallis, OR, 2005. Free reproduction permitted.

http://www.marxists.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html

Edited by Mitch Abidor.

tion yielding its greater wealth than any class inhistory has ever enjoyed will not yield up its posi-tion without a struggle which will go beyond theformal rules governing the struggle for politicalpower in the United States.

To say this openly, the Communists contend,is not a violation even of existing class laws. They will say it openly and in the court room of St.Joseph, from the public rostrum and in their press.

Palmer succeed in driving the Communistsunderground through his red raids of 1919.Daugherty and Burns expected to destroy thatunderground Communist movement throughtheir red raid of 1922. The Communist answerto the Daugherty raid was to challenge the perse-

cution of Communists before the labor movementof this country. This challenge has added to thesupport which the Communists had already wonin the labor movement and has aided it in gainingwhat it desires most the right openly to advo-cate its principles in the United States.

This right the Communists will defend inthe trials in Michigan.