A system for activating a rotor drive (31) of an open-end rotor spinning machine (30), having an open-end rotor spinning machine (30) with a plurality of workstations (33), each having a rotor drive (31) with a control unit (4), which comprises at least one communication interface (18, 19) for connecting to a workstation control unit (35), and external means for substitute activation of the individual rotor drives (31) and for reading signals representing operating state data of the rotor drive from the individual control units (4) of the rotor drives (31) by means of at least one communication interface (18, 19) of the control units (4) for adjustment and checking purposes.