Communist Rules for Revolution Found By Allied Forces in Dusseldorf Germany-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Allied Forces discovered the “Communist Rules for Revolution” in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1919 and many of these tactics remain in play nearly 100 years later.
The Truth:
The earliest accounts of the Communist Rules for Revolution appear to date back to 1940s. However, there’s no credible evidence to support claims that Allied intelligence officers found the “rules” in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1919.
The Communist Rules for Revolution outline a strategy to lead communist revolution by “corrupting” a country’s youth. That means enticing them away from religion, distracting them from their government, destroying their faith in leaders, and dividing them into hostile groups, among other tactics. It’s not clear that communist groups have ever used these tactics — but it is clear that the backstory attached to the “rules” doesn’t check out.
A nondenominational revivalistic movement known as Moral Re-Armament (MRA) started the rumor in the 1940s. MRA published the Communist Rules for Revolution in the February 1946 issue of its newsletter, New World News. That’s according to the book, “The Hoaxers,” published by Morris Kominsky in 1970. Britannica summarizes MRA, which fizzled in the 1960s, as having “much interest in converting the influential and the rich and steadfastly opposed communism. Its theology was simple and conservative.”
The rules for revolution commentary has persisted for decades. And, in July 1970, the New York Times concluded that the “rules” were a “durable fraud.” The report, which can be found archived by the CIA, concludes that the “rules” rose to prominence in 1954 thanks to George A. Brautigam, a Florida State Attorney for Dade County. He wrote, “the above rules for revolution were secured by the state attorney’s office from a known member of the Communist party, who acknowledged it to he still a part of the Communist program for overthrowing our government.” After Brautigam died in 1957, his successor said he hadn’t been able to find a source for the “rules.”
U.S. Senator Lee Metcalf, a Democrat from Montana, launched an investigation and concluded that the Rules for Revolution were “completely spurious.” The New York Timesreports:
“The extreme right wing in America also follows rules,” he said earlier in placing his findings in The Congressional Record, “and one of these rules is to make maximum use of false, misleading and fear inspiring quotations.”
He checked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Library of Congress and the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and none could authenticate the “rules.”
Additionally, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover testified that no source could be found, and “therefore we can logically speculate that this document is spurious.”