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{{short description|Derogatory term in political jargon}}
{{use dmy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{other uses}}
A '''useful idiot''' or '''useful fool''' is a [[pejorative]] description of a person, suggesting that the person thinks they are fighting for a cause without fully comprehending the consequences of their actions, and who does not realize they are being manipulated by the cause's leaders or by other political players.<ref name=oed>{{cite encyclopedia | title=useful idiot| encyclopedia= Oxford English Dictionary| year= 2017| publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref>{{citation | page=394| chapter=useful fool| title=Oxford Dictionary of Euphemisms| publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]| first=R. W.| last=Holder| year=2008| isbn=978-0199235179| quote=useful fool—a dupe of the Communists. Lenin's phrase for the shallow thinkers in the West whom the Communists manipulated. Also as ''useful idiot''.}}</ref> The term was often used during the [[Cold War]] in the [[Western Bloc|Western bloc]] to describe non-[[communists]] regarded as susceptible to [[communist propaganda]] and [[psychological manipulation]].<ref name=oed/> 

This statement has traditionally been attributed to [[Vladimir Lenin]], but this attribution is not supported by any evidence. Similar terms exist in other languages, and the first mention in the English language predates Lenin's birth.

== Early usages ==
The term ''useful idiot'', for a foolish person whose views can be taken advantage of for political purposes, was used in a British periodical as early as 1864.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://wordhistories.net/2021/03/26/useful-idiot/ | title='useful idiot': Meaning and origin | date=26 March 2021 }}</ref> In relation to the Cold War, the term appeared in a June 1948 ''[[New York Times]]'' article on contemporary Italian politics ("Communist shift is seen in Europe"),<ref name=oed/> citing the [[Italian Democratic Socialist Party]]'s newspaper {{ill|L'Umanità|it|L'Umanità (quotidiano)|italic=y}}.<ref name="nyt-1948">{{cite news|title=Communist Shift is seen in Europe; Tour of Two Italian Leaders Behind Iron Curtain Held to Doom Popular Fronts|first=Arnold|last=Cortesi|work=The New York Times | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1948/06/21/archives/communist-shift-is-seen-in-europe-tour-of-two-italian-leaders.html |date=21 June 1948 | access-date = 30 December 2018}}</ref> {{lang|it|L'Umanità}} argued that the [[Italian Socialist Party]], which had entered into a [[popular front]] with the [[Italian Communist Party]] (PCI) known as the [[Popular Democratic Front (Italy)|Popular Democratic Front]] during the [[1948 Italian general election]], would be given the option to either merge with the PCI or leave the alliance.<ref name="nyt-1948"/> The term was later used in a 1955 article in the ''[[American Federation of Labor|American Federation of Labor News-Reporter]]'' to refer to Italians who supported Communist causes.<ref>{{cite news|title='Useful Idiots' Keep Italy Reds Strong|first=Syd|last=Stogel|publisher=American Federation of Labor News-Reporter|year=1955}}</ref> ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' first used the phrase in January 1958, writing that some members of [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democracy]] considered social activist [[Danilo Dolci]] a ''useful idiot'' for Communist causes.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862833,00.html|date=13 January 1958|title=Italy: From the Slums|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref> It has since recurred in that periodical's articles, from the 1970s,<ref name=time-battlefield>{{cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909730,00.html|date=2 November 1970|title=WORLD: The City as a Battlefield: A Global Concern|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref> to the 1980s,<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Jacob V.|last=Lamar, Jr.|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966229,00.html|date=14 December 1987|title=An Offer They Can Refuse|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref> to the 2000s,<ref>{{cite magazine|first=James|last=Poniewozik|url=https://entertainment.time.com/2009/11/03/tv-marks-obama-anniversary-with-documentaries-aliens/|date=3 November 2009|title=TV Marks Obama Anniversary with Documentaries, Aliens|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref> and 2010s.<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Joe|last=Klein|url=https://swampland.time.com/2010/11/26/israel-first-yet-again/|date=26 November 2010|title=Israel First, Yet Again|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|access-date=12 March 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/03/14/wednesday-words-useful-idiots-don-draping-and-more/|title=Wednesday Words: Useful Idiots, Don 'Draping' and More|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|first=Katy|last=Steinmetz|date=14 March 2012|access-date=12 March 2018}}</ref>

In the [[Russian language]], the term "useful fools" ({{langx|ru|полезные дураки}}, [[Romanization of Russian|tr.]] ''polezniye duraki'') was already in use in 1941. It was mockingly used against Russian "[[Nihilist movement|nihilists]]" of the 1860s who, for Polish agents, were said to be no more than "useful fools and silly enthusiasts."<ref>The expression was used, e.g., by Russian literary critic {{Interlanguage link multi|Vasily Bazanov|ru|3=Базанов, Василий Григорьевич}}, when commenting on [[Nikolai Leskov]]'s [[anti-nihilistic novel]]s: "Русские «нигилисты» в руках польских агентов, судя по роману Лескова, были не больше как «полезные дураки» и глупые энтузиасты, которых можно заставить итти в огонь и в воду" ("According to Leskov's novel, Russian 'nihilists' were for Polish agents no more than ''useful fools'' and silly enthusiasts, which could be goaded to go through fire and water."), citing from Bazanov's monograph  "Из литературной полемики 60-х годов", Государственное издательство Карело-Финской ССР, Petrozavodsk, 1941 [https://books.google.com/books?id=J5chAAAAMAAJ&q=%22%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5+%D0%B4%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8%22 p. 80] The phrase refers to a contemporary opinion that Russian revolutionary movement (colloquially called "nihilists") was a result of anti-Russian agitation by  the [[January Uprising|Polish insurgents]].</ref>

While the phrase ''useful idiots of the West'' has often been attributed to [[Vladimir Lenin]], he is not documented as ever having used the phrase.<ref name="safire">{{cite news |last=Safire |first=William |date=12 April 1987 |title=On Language: Useful Idiots of the West |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/12/magazine/on-language.html |access-date=19 July 2017 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> In a 1987 article for ''The New York Times'', American journalist [[William Safire]] reported about his search for the origin of the term. He wrote that a senior reference librarian at the [[Library of Congress]], Grant Harris, had been unable to find the phrase in Lenin's works. Safire was also out of luck contacting [[TASS]] and the New York headquarters of the Communist Party. He concluded that, lacking solid evidence, a cautious phrasing must be used, e.g., "a phrase attributed to Lenin..."<ref name=safire/>

== Select usage ==
In 1959, Congressman [[Ed Derwinski]] of [[Illinois]] entered an editorial by the ''[[Daily Calumet|Chicago Daily Calumet]]'' into the Congressional record, referring to Americans who travelled to the Soviet Union to promote peace as "what Lenin calls useful idiots in the Communist game."<ref>{{USCongRec|1959|A5653|date=30 June}}.</ref> In a speech in 1965, American diplomat [[Spruille Braden]] said the term was used by [[Joseph Stalin]] to refer to what Braden called "countless innocent although well-intentioned sentimentalists or idealists" who aided the Soviet agenda.<ref>{{cite book |last=Braden |first=Spruille |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3sWAAAAYAAJ |title=Diplomats and Demagogues: The Memoirs of Spruille Braden |publisher=Arlington House |year=1971 |isbn=9780870001253 |pages=496}}</ref>

Writing in ''The New York Times'' in 1987, Safire discussed the increasing use of the term ''useful idiot'' against "anybody insufficiently anti-Communist in the view of the phrase's user", including Congressmen who supported the anti-[[Contras]] led by the [[Sandinistas]] in Nicaragua and the [[Labour Party (Netherlands)|Labour Party]] in the Netherlands.<ref name="safire"/> After United States president [[Ronald Reagan]] concluded negotiations with Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] over the [[Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty]], conservative political leader [[Howard Phillips (activist)|Howard Phillips]] declared Reagan a "useful idiot for [[Soviet propaganda]]".<ref name="they-never-said-it">{{cite book|title=They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes|first1=Paul F.|last1=Boller|first2=John H.|last2=George|year=1989|publisher=Barnes & Nobles Books|isbn=9781566191050}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|title=The Right Against Reagan|first=Hendrick|last=Smith|magazine=[[The New York Times Magazine]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/17/magazine/the-right-against-reagan.html|date=17 January 1988|access-date=12 March 2018}}</ref>

''[[The Economist]]'' published a 2023 article titled "[[Vladimir Putin]]'s useful idiots"; it describes "useful Idiot narratives" pushed by ''[[Putinversteher]]'' that support Putin's aims and denigrate his perceived enemies.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/07/03/vladimir-putins-useful-idiots |title=Vladimir Putin's useful idiots |magazine=[[The Economist]] |date=3 July 2023|access-date=12 August 2023}}</ref>

== Variations of the term ==
The Serbo-Croatian term {{lang|sh|korisne budale}}, which may be translated as ''useful idiots'' or ''useful innocents'', attributed to unnamed Yugoslav communists, appears in a 1946 ''[[Reader's Digest]]'' article titled "Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World", written by [[Bogdan Raditsa]]. Raditsa had served the [[Yugoslav government-in-exile]] during World War II, supported [[Josip Broz Tito]]'s partisans but was not a communist himself, and briefly served in Tito's led [[Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia]] before leaving for New York.<ref>{{cite news|title=Yugoslavia Run by Russia, says Ex-Aide of Tito |work=[[Chicago Daily Tribune]] |date=24 September 1946|page=6|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->}}</ref> Raditsa said: "In the [[Serbo-Croat language]], the communists have a phrase for true democrats who consent to collaborate with them for [the sake of] 'democracy'. It is ''Korisne Budale'', or Useful Innocents."<ref name="RD-Raditsa">{{cite magazine|first=Bogdan|last=Raditsa|title=Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World|magazine=Reader's Digest Service|volume=49|year=1946|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rCgYAQAAIAAJ&q=%22korisne+Budale%22}}</ref> 

In his 1947 book ''Planned Chaos'', Austrian-American economist [[Ludwig von Mises]] wrote that the term ''useful innocents'' was used by communists for those whom von Mises describes as "confused and misguided sympathizers [of the revolutionary idea]".<ref> Ludwig von Mises, ''Planned Chaos'', Foundation for Economic Education, 1947, [https://books.google.com/books?id=1Tp2Fm-8RnYC&pg=PA29 p. 29].</ref> 

The expression was discussed in connection with two other related quotations attributed to Lenin (though no records have shown he has never used these phrases), which are also about Western "idiots" being manipulated by the Soviet communists. The quotations are known as "the rope" ("The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them") and the "deaf, dumb and blind". For example, [[William J. Bennett]] summarized that "'Useful idiot' was the term communists used for credulous Western businessmen", giving as an example [[Armand Hammer]] "who helped build up the Soviet Communist state".<ref name=bennett>{{citation|authorlink=William J. Bennett|first=William J. |last=Bennett|page=618|title=America: The Last Best Hope (Volume II): From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom|isbn=978-1595550576|publisher=Thomas Nelson}}</ref> Bennett recounted a famous story wherein Lenin was asked, "How will we hang the Capitalists, we don't have enough rope!"<ref name=bennett /> Lenin was reported (though there are no records of him doing so) to have "famously replied" with the rejoinder, "They will sell it to us &mdash; on credit."<ref name=bennett /> 

The rhetoric about the "rope" was summarized by economic theorists to represent Lenin's ideological conception is as follows<ref name ="Quotations">''The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture'' by Gary Saul Morson, [[Yale University Press]], 2011, page 98.</ref>
	
{{Quotation|They [capitalists] will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.}}
	
and the "dumb and blind" version of the quotation (is reported to be from handwritten notes by Lenin which was summarized by a painter of Lenin; Yuri Annenkov [no attempt has been made to confirm since April 12, 1987]) was the following:<ref name="safire" />
	
{{Quotation|To speak the truth is a petit-bourgeois habit. To lie, on the contrary, is often justified by the lie's aim. The whole world's capitalists and their governments, as they pant to win the Soviet market, will close their eyes to the above-mentioned reality and will thus transform themselves into men who are deaf, dumb and blind. They will give us credits . . . they will toil to prepare their own suicide.}}

== See also ==
* [[Agent of influence]]
* [[Fellow traveller]]
* [[Low information voter]]
* [[Political literacy]]
* [[Political warfare]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
{{wikt}}
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p008vd41 Useful Idiots: The Documentary]. ''[[BBC World Service]]''. 2010.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Useful Idiot}}
[[Category:Political pejoratives for people]]