Snopes voted that one “false” yet cited some very questionable sources to do so.
Snopes is left leaning.
I can’t prove it, but I remember my mom bringing home a thermofax copy of “Communist Rules For Revolution” to show to my grandparents. It was being passed around her office. I was between 6 & 9 years old, so 1962-1965. It wasn’t a reprint of a newspaper column, but had been typed out on a sheet of paper.
I also remember that there was a “People For The American Way” office on the north side of Basse Road between Blanco Road & San Pedro Avenue (in San Antonio, Texas) PRIOR to 1968. Wikipedia states that it was founded in 1981. I believe that CAN be be proved by City Directories or Coles from that time.
(When I asked what kind of business it was, my mom (or my grandaddy/ grandmother, said they were communists. It was across the street from a beauty supply where my mom sometimes shopped.)
This is not a hoax, a joke, a confabulation, or a conspiracy theory. People took it very seriously back then.
One thing I have never understood is how “free speech” was accepted as a rationalization for tolerating open subversion of our government.
WTH were we thinkin’?