The following is an article from the August 1946 issue of the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN.
"RULES FOR REVOLUTION"
On a dark night in May, 1919, two lorries rumbled across a bridge and on into the town of Dusseldorf. Amomg 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 brining 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, destroy their ruggedness.
"B. Get control of all means of publicity and thereby:
"1. Get peoples minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and plays, and other trivialities.
"2. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance.
"3. Destroy the peoples faith in their natural leaders by holding these latter up to ridicule, obloquy, and contempt.
"4. Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible.
"5. By encouraging government extravagance, destroy its credit, produce fear of inflation with rising prices and general discontent.
"6. Foment unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorders and foster a lenient and soft attitude on the part of government toward such disorders.
"7. By specious arguments 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 TO CONFISCATING THEM AND LEAVING THE POPULATION HELPLESS.-from New World News, Feb 1946.
All emphasis was theirs. I copied it exactly as it was in the magazine. There was something about this being a hoax perpatrated by the NRA, and supposedly an editor was quoted as saying so. However, in the September 1970 issue of the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN, editor Ashley Halsey, Jr. states "To set the record straight for NRA Members, such a note could have come from only one of two editors: The extremely able C. B. Lister, who was editor when the "Rules" were published in 1946 and who died May 14, 1951, and the present editor, who is not about to "apologize" for something published 20 years before he came to the magazine and especially not under the circumstances.
Instead of publishing the debated "Rules," as many urged, this magazine went to the Library of Congress in May for eveidence to show how Communist leaders opposed private ownership of firearms. This appears in the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN for August, p. 16, "Communism versu gun ownership."
Let's hope that nobody, this time, accuses the Library of Congress and the "gun lobby" of conniving in a hoax-Ashely Halsey, Jr. Editor, THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN
All I can add is, reading those "rules" and seeing the way things are going, somebody did not pay attention back in 1946.
Paul B.
[This message has been edited by Paul B. (edited June 26, 1999).]
"RULES FOR REVOLUTION"
On a dark night in May, 1919, two lorries rumbled across a bridge and on into the town of Dusseldorf. Amomg 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 brining 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, destroy their ruggedness.
"B. Get control of all means of publicity and thereby:
"1. Get peoples minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and plays, and other trivialities.
"2. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance.
"3. Destroy the peoples faith in their natural leaders by holding these latter up to ridicule, obloquy, and contempt.
"4. Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible.
"5. By encouraging government extravagance, destroy its credit, produce fear of inflation with rising prices and general discontent.
"6. Foment unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorders and foster a lenient and soft attitude on the part of government toward such disorders.
"7. By specious arguments 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 TO CONFISCATING THEM AND LEAVING THE POPULATION HELPLESS.-from New World News, Feb 1946.
All emphasis was theirs. I copied it exactly as it was in the magazine. There was something about this being a hoax perpatrated by the NRA, and supposedly an editor was quoted as saying so. However, in the September 1970 issue of the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN, editor Ashley Halsey, Jr. states "To set the record straight for NRA Members, such a note could have come from only one of two editors: The extremely able C. B. Lister, who was editor when the "Rules" were published in 1946 and who died May 14, 1951, and the present editor, who is not about to "apologize" for something published 20 years before he came to the magazine and especially not under the circumstances.
Instead of publishing the debated "Rules," as many urged, this magazine went to the Library of Congress in May for eveidence to show how Communist leaders opposed private ownership of firearms. This appears in the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN for August, p. 16, "Communism versu gun ownership."
Let's hope that nobody, this time, accuses the Library of Congress and the "gun lobby" of conniving in a hoax-Ashely Halsey, Jr. Editor, THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN
All I can add is, reading those "rules" and seeing the way things are going, somebody did not pay attention back in 1946.
Paul B.
[This message has been edited by Paul B. (edited June 26, 1999).]