Communist Rules for Revolution
This urban legend refers to a list of rules, usually ten of them, which is distributed in written form or printed, claiming to be a master plan for a communist takeover of the West that was “captured in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1919 by the Allied Forces”. It is sometimes titled “Rules for Bringing about a Revolution”. These “set of rules” include denying religion, increased interest in sex, strikes by labor unions, registration of firearms, extravagance by the government, and other subjects concerned by zealots.
One rule is to “Destroy the people’s faith in their leaders by holding the latter up to contempt, ridicule, and obloquy”. This urban legend began as a British publication in 1946. Since then, many congressman and politicians have been denying the authenticity of these such works. Even in the 1990s, despite the breakdown of communism across the world, these rules are still being published with warnings sometimes being present in editorials of newspapers. A writer from Utah in 1990 said, “Innocent people who are fighting for gun control, unknowingly are helping the communist goal”.
(Source: Brunvand, Jan. Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. 2001.)
