Were these 'Communist Rules for Revolution' written in 1919?

Question

Please disregard the website on which this is found. Were these "rules" actually found in 1919?

From: http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/newspaper-clipping-from-oct-13-1975/104739

A reader who has kept a copy since we first published it in April 1970, has suggested that "lest we forget" the following be published again:

In May 1919 at Dusseldorf, Germany, the allied forces obtained a copy of the Communist Rules for Revolution. Fifty years later the Reds are still following these rules.

A. Corrupt the young, get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial, and destroy their ruggedness.

B. Get control of all means of publicity thereby:

1. Get the peoples minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and other trivialities.

2. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance.

3. Destroy the people’s faith in their natural leaders by holding the latter up to contempt, ridicule and obloquy.

4. Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible.

5. By encouraging government extravagance, destroy its credit and produce fear of inflation with rising prices and general discontent.

6. Foment unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorders, and foster lenient and soft attitude on the part of government toward such disorders.

7. By Specious argument cause the breakdown of the old moral virtues, honesty, sobriety, continence, faith in the pledged word, ruggedness.

C. Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext, with a view towards confiscating them and leaving the populace helpless.

Answer 1

While it would be impossible to prove that no communist ever said anything like this, the answer is still not at all legitimate.

This appears to be a recurring myth used to discredit political opponents every so often since the 1970s. From snopes:

[N]obody has ever managed to turn up the mysterious issue of Examiner-Enterprise that supposedly printed this list. When columnist Bob Greene checked out this piece with Russian specialists at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University in the mid-1980s, they said the list was "a total fraud," "an obvious fabrication," and "an implausible concoction of American fears and phobias." (Greene also wrote: "I always wanted to meet a communist who was carrying the list around, so I could ask him what 'obloquy' means.")

Besides the alleged source not containing this list, it has never appeared anywhere else either:

When The New York Times ran an article on this piece back in 1970, it had already been circulating for about twenty-five years. The Times reported that neither the National Archives, the Library of Congress, nor university libraries had a copy of any such document. When Montana senator Lee Metcalf looked into the issue back then, he checked with the FBI, CIA, and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee; he found that "exhaustive research" had proved the rules to be "completely spurious," and he declared that "the extreme right also follows rules, one of which is to make maximum use of false, misleading and fear-inspiring quotations." Nonetheless, numerous members of congress have received copies of the Communist "rules" list from alarmed constituents over the years and, believing that nobody else was yet aware of them, have inserted them into the Congressional Record. This list has also been reproduced in many newspaper columns and letters to the editor.

The earliest known publication of these rules dates from February 1946, and it's significant to note that publication coincided with events such as Winston Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech, in which he issued a warning to citizens of the United States that "Communist parties constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization." The timing suggests it's far more likely this list was compiled by Americans in 1946 than by Russians in 1919.

So it would appear that this is the other side of making up quotes to support your self; making up quotes to discredit your opponents. This particular case has been around for a while, and has been thoroughly researched.

Answer 2

If you look at the January 1947 printing of the rules in the magazine Typo Graphic, page 35, (which credits New World News February 1946) the rules are not characterized as communist. They are simply titled "Rules for Revolution".

This version starts with the story:

On a dark night in May, 1919, two lorries rumbled across a bridge and on into the town of Dusseldorf. Among the dozen rowdy, singing “Tommies” apparently headed for a gay evening were two representatives of the Allied military intelligence. These men had traced a wave of indiscipline, mutiny, and murder among the troops to the local headquarters of a revolutionary organization established in the town. Pretending to be drunk, they brushed by the sentries and arrested the ringleaders - a group of thirteen men and women seated at a long table. In the course of the raid the Allied officers emptied the contents of the safe. One of the documents found in it contained a specific outline of “Rules for Bringing About a Revolution." It is reprinted here to show the strategy of materialistic revolution, and how personal attitudes and habits of living affect the affairs of nations:

A. Corrupt the young. Get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial ...

However, the 1955 Report on investigation of subversive activities in Florida by the Florida Attorney General, while still titling the rules simply "Rules for Revolution", adds "From material collected by an undercover man in the Communist Party of Dade County for the FBI".

At about the same time (November 1954) as the Florida report, and giving Florida state attorney George A. Brautigam as the source, the American Legion published (see page 6) the rules and stated they were the "official communist party 'Rules for Revolution'".

The New World News was a publication of Moral Re-Armament and the 1970 book The hoaxers: plain liars, fancy liars, and damned liars discusses the Rules and states:

In response to two letters of inquiry, Mr. H. Mead Twitchell, Jr., of Moral Re-Armament, wrote to us on October 7, 1966:

"Rules for Revolution" goes back a long ways — it is a story of 1919. It appeared in German in a German paper during the twenties or thirties, was translated into English in Britain. I believe it was first used in the U.S. in Rising Tide, a magazine published about 1937. But I cannot find a copy to check this, and do not know the name of the German newspaper.

The most plausible explanation, on the basis of what Mr. Twitchell has reported, is that "Communist Rules for Revolution" is a product of the Nazi propaganda machine, and was picked up by the British and American Ultra-Rightists as a weapon of the Cold War.