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Please step back and respect consensus.
Undid revision 830986212 by SPECIFICO (talk) there clearly is NO "consensus" for including this, as evident from the fact that people keep disagreering with you
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-71043-0003, Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Vladimir Lenin]]]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-71043-0003, Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Vladimir Lenin]]]]


The phrase "useful idiot" has often been attributed to [[Vladimir Lenin]], although it was not found in his written published works.<ref name=safire>{{cite news|accessdate=19 July 2017|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/12/magazine/on-language.html|first=William|last=Safire|title=On Language: Useful Idiots Of the West|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=12 April 1987}}</ref> In a 1987 article for ''[[The New York Times]]'', American journalist [[William Safire]] noted that a senior reference librarian at the [[Library of Congress]] had been unable to find the phrase in Lenin's works, and concluded that instead of telling ''As Lenin said...'' one must try "''As Lenin was reported to have said ...'' or ''In a phrase attributed to Lenin...''".<ref name=safire/><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>
The phrase "useful idiot" has often been attributed to [[Vladimir Lenin]], although he is not documented as having ever used the phrase.<ref name=safire>{{cite news|accessdate=19 July 2017|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/12/magazine/on-language.html|first=William|last=Safire|title=On Language: Useful Idiots Of the West|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=12 April 1987}}</ref> In a 1987 article for ''[[The New York Times]]'', American journalist [[William Safire]] investigated the origin of the term, noting that a senior reference librarian at the [[Library of Congress]] had been unable to find the phrase in Lenin's works, and concluding that absent new evidence, the term could not be attributed to Lenin.<ref name=safire/><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> Similarly, the [[Oxford English Dictionary]], in defining "useful idiot," says that "The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union."<ref name=oed/>


⚫
In her book, ''Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First'', conservative author [[Mona Charen]] comments that "Lenin is widely credited with the prediction that liberals and other weak-minded souls in the West could be relied upon to be 'useful idiots' as far as the Soviet Union was concerned," and argues that although Lenin may never have used the phrase, it would have been consistent with his "cynical style."<ref name=charen>{{citation|title=Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First|first=Mona|last=Charen|authorlink=Mona Charen|page=10|year=2003|isbn=978-0895261397|publisher=Regnery Publishing}}</ref>
The expression is frequently discussed in connection with two other related quotations attributed to Lenin, 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]] wrote that "'Useful idiot' was the term Lenin had 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 to have "famously replied" with the rejoinder, "They will sell it to us &mdash; on credit."<ref name=bennett /> However, according to [[William Safire]], these quotations, which were "making the rounds ... since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917"<ref> ''They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions'' </ref> were not found in published written works by Lenin.<ref name="safire1">{{cite news| accessdate=19 July 2017|url = https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/12/magazine/on-language.html| first = William| last = Safire| title = On Language: Useful Idiots Of the West| work = [[The New York Times]]| date = 12 April 1987}}</ref>

The wording from written works by Lenin about the "rope" was 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 (from handwritten notes by Lenin) was the following<ref name="safire1"/>:
{{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.}}

According to book ''The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture''<ref name ="Quotations"/>, even if the origin of these quotations might not be reliably established, they are not [[False attribution|misquotation]]s because these phrases belong to the public image of Lenin, define exactly his ideas, and use wording that would be actually used by Lenin and his comrades, such as the "ropes", "idiots" or "deaf, dumb and blind".

⚫
In her book, ''Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First'', [[Mona Charen]] comments that "Lenin is widely credited with the prediction that liberals and other weak-minded souls in the West could be relied upon to be 'useful idiots' as far as the Soviet Union was concerned," and argues that although Lenin may never have used the phrase, it would have been consistent with his "cynical style."<ref name=charen>{{citation|title=Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First|first=Mona|last=Charen|authorlink=Mona Charen|page=10|year=2003|isbn=978-0895261397|publisher=Regnery Publishing}}</ref>


The term is first documented to have appeared in print in a June 1948 [[The New York Times|''New York Times'']] article on contemporary Italian politics ("Communist shift is seen in Europe"), citing the [[Italian Democratic Socialist Party|centrist social-democratic]] Italian paper ''L'Umanità''.<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|date=21 June 1948}}</ref><ref name=oed/> ''L'Umanità'' wrote that [[Italian Socialist Party|left-wing social democrats]], who had entered into a [[Popular Democratic Front (Italy)|popular front]] with the [[Italian Communist Party]] during the [[Italian general election, 1948|1948 elections]], would be given the option of either merging with the Communists or leaving the alliance.<ref name="nyt-1948"/> The term was later used in a 1955 article in the ''[[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 employed the phrase in January 1958, writing that some [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Italian Christian Democrats]] considered social activist [[Danilo Dolci]] to be a "useful idiot" for Communist causes, and it has recurred thereafter in the periodical's articles.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862833,00.html|date=13 January 1958|title=Italy: From the Slums|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref name=time-battlefield>{{cite news|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|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|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|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=James|last=Poniewozik|url=http://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|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Joe|last=Klein|url=http://swampland.time.com/2010/11/26/israel-first-yet-again/|date=26 November 2010|title=Israel First, Yet Again|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/03/14/wednesday-words-useful-idiots-don-draping-and-more/|title=Wednesday Words: Useful Idiots, Don 'Draping' and More|work=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|date=14 March 2012|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref>
The term is first documented to have appeared in print in a June 1948 [[The New York Times|''New York Times'']] article on contemporary Italian politics ("Communist shift is seen in Europe"), citing the [[Italian Democratic Socialist Party|centrist social-democratic]] Italian paper ''L'Umanità''.<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|date=21 June 1948}}</ref><ref name=oed/> ''L'Umanità'' wrote that [[Italian Socialist Party|left-wing social democrats]], who had entered into a [[Popular Democratic Front (Italy)|popular front]] with the [[Italian Communist Party]] during the [[Italian general election, 1948|1948 elections]], would be given the option of either merging with the Communists or leaving the alliance.<ref name="nyt-1948"/> The term was later used in a 1955 article in the ''[[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 employed the phrase in January 1958, writing that some [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Italian Christian Democrats]] considered social activist [[Danilo Dolci]] to be a "useful idiot" for Communist causes, and it has recurred thereafter in the periodical's articles.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862833,00.html|date=13 January 1958|title=Italy: From the Slums|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref name=time-battlefield>{{cite news|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|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|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|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=James|last=Poniewozik|url=http://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|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Joe|last=Klein|url=http://swampland.time.com/2010/11/26/israel-first-yet-again/|date=26 November 2010|title=Israel First, Yet Again|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/03/14/wednesday-words-useful-idiots-don-draping-and-more/|title=Wednesday Words: Useful Idiots, Don 'Draping' and More|work=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|date=14 March 2012|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref>
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==Use of the term==
==Use of the term==
In 1959, U.S. Congressman [[Ed Derwinski]] of Illinois entered an editorial by the ''[[Daily Calumet|Chicago Daily Calumet]]'' into the Congressional record, referring to Americans who traveled 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 1961, American journalist [[Frank Gibney]] wrote that Lenin had coined the phrase "useful idiot." Gibney wrote that the phrase was a good description of "Communist follower[s]" from [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] to left-wing socialists in Japan to members of the [[Popular Front (Chile)|Chilean Popular Front]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Frank|last=Gibney|title=The Khrushchev Pattern|publisher=Duell, Sloan and Pearce|year=1961|page=8|url=https://books.google.cl/books?id=re1oAAAAMAAJ}}</ref> In a speech in 1965, [[Spruille Braden]], an American diplomat stationed in a number of Latin American countries during the 1930s and '40s and later a lobbyist for the [[United Fruit Company]], 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|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3sWAAAAYAAJ|title=Diplomats and Demagogues: the Memoirs of Spruille Braden|first=Spruille|last=Braden|publisher=Arlington House|year=1971|pages=496}}</ref>
In 1959, U.S. Congressman [[Ed Derwinski]] of Illinois entered an editorial by the ''[[Daily Calumet|Chicago Daily Calumet]]'' into the Congressional record, referring to Americans who traveled 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 1961, American journalist [[Frank Gibney]] wrote that Lenin had coined the phrase "useful idiot." Gibney wrote that the phrase was a good description of "Communist follower[s]" from [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] to left-wing socialists in Japan to members of the [[Popular Front (Chile)|Chilean Popular Front]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Frank|last=Gibney|title=The Khrushchev Pattern|publisher=Duell, Sloan and Pearce|year=1961|page=8|url=https://books.google.cl/books?id=re1oAAAAMAAJ}}</ref> In a speech in 1965, [[Spruille Braden]], an American diplomat stationed in a number of Latin American countries during the 1930s and '40s and later a lobbyist for the [[United Fruit Company]], 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|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3sWAAAAYAAJ|title=Diplomats and Demagogues: the Memoirs of Spruille Braden|first=Spruille|last=Braden|publisher=Arlington House|year=1971|pages=496}}</ref>

In their book, [[Dezinformatsia (book)|''Dezinformatsia: The Strategy of Soviet Disinformation'']], by [[Richard H. Shultz]], professor of international politics at Tufts University, and [[Roy Godson]], professor emeritus of government at Georgetown University, the authors detail the tactics of information warfare used by the KGB during the Soviet era as part of their active measures. The Soviets were able to bring [[agents of influence]] into their fold and do their bidding, through [[social influence]] as unwitting agents.<ref>{{citation|first=David|last=Charters|volume=5|issue=4|year=1985|title=Richard H. Shultz and Roy Godson, Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy|journal=Conflict Quarterly|publisher=The Journal of Conflict Studies|page=79|url=https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/JCS/article/view/14695/15764|oclc=5127078304}}</ref><ref>{{citation|url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/book-reviews/10867920/dezinformatsia-active-measures-soviet-strategy-book|journal=[[Society (journal)|Society]]|title=Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy|last=Sloan|first=Stephen|date=January 1985|volume=22|issue=2|page=84}}</ref><ref>{{citation|title=Review – Reviewed Work(s): Dezinfomatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy. by Richard H. Shultz and Roy Godson|first=Ellen|last= Mickiewicz|journal=[[Political Science Quarterly]]|volume=99|issue=4|date=1984|pages=770–771|publisher=[[Academy of Political Science]]|via=[[JSTOR]]|jstor=2150750|doi=10.2307/2150750}}</ref>


Writing in the New York Times in 1987, William Safire discussed the increasing use of the term "useful idiot" against "anybody insufficiently anti-Communist in the view of the phrase's user," including U.S. Congressmen who supported the [[Sandinistas]] against the [[Contras]] in Nicaragua, and [[Labour Party (Netherlands)|Dutch socialists]].<ref name=safire/> After [[Ronald Reagan|U.S. President Ronald Reagan]] concluded negotiations with Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] over the [[Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty]], conservative political leader [[Howard Phillips (politician)|Howard Phillips]] declared Reagan to be a "useful idiot for Soviet propaganda."<ref>{{cite news|title=The Right Against Reagan|first=Hendrick|last=Smith|publisher=[[The New York Times Magazine]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/17/magazine/the-right-against-reagan.html|date=17 January 1988|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref><ref name="they-never-said-it"/>
Writing in the New York Times in 1987, William Safire discussed the increasing use of the term "useful idiot" against "anybody insufficiently anti-Communist in the view of the phrase's user," including U.S. Congressmen who supported the [[Sandinistas]] against the [[Contras]] in Nicaragua, and [[Labour Party (Netherlands)|Dutch socialists]].<ref name=safire/> After [[Ronald Reagan|U.S. President Ronald Reagan]] concluded negotiations with Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] over the [[Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty]], conservative political leader [[Howard Phillips (politician)|Howard Phillips]] declared Reagan to be a "useful idiot for Soviet propaganda."<ref>{{cite news|title=The Right Against Reagan|first=Hendrick|last=Smith|publisher=[[The New York Times Magazine]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/17/magazine/the-right-against-reagan.html|date=17 January 1988|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref><ref name="they-never-said-it"/>

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The label "useful idiot" was applied both to supporters and opponents of the [[Iraq War]]. Conservative political commentator Monica Charen applied the label to liberal U.S. Congressmen who had toured Iraq before the war, arguing that they had been manipulated by the Iraqi government.<ref>{{cite web|first=Monica|last=Charen|title=Useful Idiots: Then and Now|publisher=St. Croix Review|url=http://www.stcroixreview.com/archives_nopass/2004-10/Charen.htm|date=October 2004|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref> [[Tony Judt]] wrote that liberal supporters of the Iraq War and the War on Terror had made themselves "useful idiots" of George W. Bush's foreign policy. Judt argued that liberals saw these wars through an altruistic lens that Bush's neo-conservative allies did not share, and provided an "ethical fig-leaf" for "brutish policies."<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Bush's Useful Idiots|first=Tony|last=Judt|magazine=London Review of Books|date=21 September 2006|accessdate=12 March 2018|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n18/tony-judt/bushs-useful-idiots}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Bush's "Useful Idiots": 9/11, the Liberal Hawks and the Cooption of the "War on Terror"|first=Maria|last=Ryan|journal=Journal of American Studies|year=2011|volume=45|issue=4|pages=667&ndash;693|doi=10.1017/S0021875811000909}}</ref><ref name="hoffman-2006">{{cite web|first=Nicholas|last=von Hoffman|title=Useful Idiots|publisher=[[The Nation]]|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/useful-idiots/|date=23 October 2006|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref>


In 2007, professor of political science Peter W. Sperlich labeled [[George Bernard Shaw]] and [[Lion Feuchtwanger]] "useful idiots" for their comments on the [[Soviet famine of 1932-33]] and the [[Moscow Trials]], respectively.<ref>{{cite book|first=Peter W.|last=Sperlich|title=The East German Social Courts: Law and Popular Justice in a Marxist-Leninist Society|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2007|page=17}}</ref> In 2012, ''[[The Guardian|Guardian]]'' correspondent [[Luke Harding]] wrote that [[Walter Duranty]], a ''[[New York Times]]'' correspondent in Moscow during the 1930s, allowed himself to be "duped" by Soviet authorities, and is depicted in a play by contemporary reporter [[Malcolm Muggeridge]] as a "quintessential 'useful idiot.'"<ref>{{cite book|first=Luke|last=Harding|title=Expelled: A Journalist's Descent into the Russian Mafia State|date=22 May 2012|publisher=St. Martin's Press|page=104|isbn=9781137048387}}</ref>
In 2007, professor of political science Peter W. Sperlich labeled [[George Bernard Shaw]] and [[Lion Feuchtwanger]] "useful idiots" for their comments on the [[Soviet famine of 1932-33]] and the [[Moscow Trials]], respectively.<ref>{{cite book|first=Peter W.|last=Sperlich|title=The East German Social Courts: Law and Popular Justice in a Marxist-Leninist Society|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2007|page=17}}</ref> In 2012, ''[[The Guardian|Guardian]]'' correspondent [[Luke Harding]] wrote that [[Walter Duranty]], a ''[[New York Times]]'' correspondent in Moscow during the 1930s, allowed himself to be "duped" by Soviet authorities, and is depicted in a play by contemporary reporter [[Malcolm Muggeridge]] as a "quintessential 'useful idiot.'"<ref>{{cite book|first=Luke|last=Harding|title=Expelled: A Journalist's Descent into the Russian Mafia State|date=22 May 2012|publisher=St. Martin's Press|page=104|isbn=9781137048387}}</ref>


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In the end of 2016, the former Secretary of State [[Madeleine Albright]]<ref>[https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/trump-russia-useful-idiot-madeleine-albright-230238 Albright: Trump fits the mold of Russia's 'useful idiot'] by [[Madeleine Albright]]</ref> and the Editorial Board of ''[[The New York Times]]'' applied the term to [[President-elect of the United States|President-elect]] [[Donald Trump]].<ref name="NYT_12/15/2016">{{citation|author=The Editorial Board|date=15 December 2016|title=Donald Trump's Denial About Russia|work=[[The New York Times]]|accessdate=12 March 2018|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/opinion/donald-trumps-denial-about-russia.html|quote=There could be no more 'useful idiot,' to use Lenin's term of art, than an American president who doesn't know he's being played by a wily foreign power.}}</ref> [[Michael Morell]], former acting [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] director, wrote: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."<ref>{{cite web|last=Morell|first=Michael J.|title=Opinion - I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton.|website=The New York Times|date=12 August 2016|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/campaign-stops/i-ran-the-cia-now-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton.html|accessdate=10 March 2018}}</ref> [[Michael Hayden (general)|Michael Hayden]], former [[Director of National Intelligence|director]] of both the US [[National Security Agency]] and the CIA, described Trump as a "useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited."<ref>{{cite news|first=Michael|last=Hayden|title=Former CIA chief: Trump is Russia's useful fool|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/former-cia-chief-trump-is-russias-useful-fool/2016/11/03/cda42ffe-a1d5-11e6-8d63-3e0a660f1f04_story.html|work=[[The Washington Post]]|date=3 November 2016|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref>
⚫
The label "useful idiot" was applied both to supporters and opponents of the [[Iraq War]]. Conservative political commentator Monica Charen applied the label to liberal U.S. Congressmen who had toured Iraq before the war, arguing that they had been manipulated by the Iraqi government.<ref>{{cite web|first=Monica|last=Charen|title=Useful Idiots: Then and Now|publisher=St. Croix Review|url=http://www.stcroixreview.com/archives_nopass/2004-10/Charen.htm|date=October 2004|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref> [[Tony Judt]] wrote that liberal supporters of the Iraq War and the War on Terror had made themselves "useful idiots" of George W. Bush's foreign policy. Judt argued that liberals saw these wars through an altruistic lens that Bush's neo-conservative allies did not share, and provided an "ethical fig-leaf" for "brutish policies."<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Bush's Useful Idiots|first=Tony|last=Judt|magazine=London Review of Books|date=21 September 2006|accessdate=12 March 2018|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n18/tony-judt/bushs-useful-idiots}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Bush's "Useful Idiots": 9/11, the Liberal Hawks and the Cooption of the "War on Terror"|first=Maria|last=Ryan|journal=Journal of American Studies|year=2011|volume=45|issue=4|pages=667&ndash;693|doi=10.1017/S0021875811000909}}</ref><ref name="hoffman-2006">{{cite web|first=Nicholas|last=von Hoffman|title=Useful Idiots|publisher=[[The Nation]]|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/useful-idiots/|date=23 October 2006|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref>

⚫
At the end of 2016, the former Secretary of State [[Madeleine Albright]]<ref>[https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/trump-russia-useful-idiot-madeleine-albright-230238 Albright: Trump fits the mold of Russia's 'useful idiot'] by [[Madeleine Albright]]</ref> and the Editorial Board of ''[[The New York Times]]'' applied the term to [[President-elect of the United States|President-elect]] [[Donald Trump]].<ref name="NYT_12/15/2016">{{citation|author=The Editorial Board|date=15 December 2016|title=Donald Trump's Denial About Russia|work=[[The New York Times]]|accessdate=12 March 2018|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/opinion/donald-trumps-denial-about-russia.html|quote=There could be no more 'useful idiot,' to use Lenin's term of art, than an American president who doesn't know he's being played by a wily foreign power.}}</ref> [[Michael Morell]], former acting [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] director, wrote: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."<ref>{{cite web|last=Morell|first=Michael J.|title=Opinion - I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton.|website=The New York Times|date=12 August 2016|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/campaign-stops/i-ran-the-cia-now-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton.html|accessdate=10 March 2018}}</ref> [[Michael Hayden (general)|Michael Hayden]], former [[Director of National Intelligence|director]] of both the US [[National Security Agency]] and the CIA, described Trump as a "useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited."<ref>{{cite news|first=Michael|last=Hayden|title=Former CIA chief: Trump is Russia's useful fool|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/former-cia-chief-trump-is-russias-useful-fool/2016/11/03/cda42ffe-a1d5-11e6-8d63-3e0a660f1f04_story.html|work=[[The Washington Post]]|date=3 November 2016|accessdate=12 March 2018}}</ref>


==See also==
==See also==

Revision as of 02:46, 19 March 2018

For other uses, see Useful idiot (disambiguation).

In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as a propagandist for a cause the goals of which they are not fully aware, and who is used cynically by the leaders of the cause.[1][2] The term was originally used to describe non-Communists regarded as susceptible to Communist propaganda and manipulation.[1] The term has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is controversial.[3][4]

Origin of the term

Vladimir Lenin

The phrase "useful idiot" has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, although he is not documented as having ever used the phrase.[3] In a 1987 article for The New York Times, American journalist William Safire investigated the origin of the term, noting that a senior reference librarian at the Library of Congress had been unable to find the phrase in Lenin's works, and concluding that absent new evidence, the term could not be attributed to Lenin.[3][4] Similarly, the Oxford English Dictionary, in defining "useful idiot," says that "The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union."[1]

In her book, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, conservative author Mona Charen comments that "Lenin is widely credited with the prediction that liberals and other weak-minded souls in the West could be relied upon to be 'useful idiots' as far as the Soviet Union was concerned," and argues that although Lenin may never have used the phrase, it would have been consistent with his "cynical style."[5]

The term is first documented to have appeared in print in a June 1948 New York Times article on contemporary Italian politics ("Communist shift is seen in Europe"), citing the centrist social-democratic Italian paper L'Umanità.[6][1] L'Umanità wrote that left-wing social democrats, who had entered into a popular front with the Italian Communist Party during the 1948 elections, would be given the option of either merging with the Communists or leaving the alliance.[6] The term was later used in a 1955 article in the American Federation of Labor News-Reporter to refer to Italians who supported Communist causes.[7] Time first employed the phrase in January 1958, writing that some Italian Christian Democrats considered social activist Danilo Dolci to be a "useful idiot" for Communist causes, and it has recurred thereafter in the periodical's articles.[8][9][10][11][12][13]

A similar term, useful innocents, appears in Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises' 1947 book, Planned Chaos. Von Mises wrote that the term was used by communists for liberals, whom von Mises describes as "confused and misguided sympathizers".[14] The term useful innocents also appears in a 1946 Readers Digest article titled "Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World," written by Bogdan Raditsa, who had served the Yugoslav government-in-exile during WWII, supported Tito's partisans (though not a Communist himself) and briefly served in Tito's new Yugoslav government before leaving for New York.[15] "In the Serbo-Croat language," says Raditsa, "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."[16]

Use of the term

In 1959, U.S. Congressman Ed Derwinski of Illinois entered an editorial by the Chicago Daily Calumet into the Congressional record, referring to Americans who traveled to the Soviet Union to promote peace as "what Lenin calls useful idiots in the Communist game."[17] In 1961, American journalist Frank Gibney wrote that Lenin had coined the phrase "useful idiot." Gibney wrote that the phrase was a good description of "Communist follower[s]" from Jean-Paul Sartre to left-wing socialists in Japan to members of the Chilean Popular Front.[18] In a speech in 1965, Spruille Braden, an American diplomat stationed in a number of Latin American countries during the 1930s and '40s and later a lobbyist for the United Fruit Company, 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.[19]

Writing in the New York Times in 1987, William Safire discussed the increasing use of the term "useful idiot" against "anybody insufficiently anti-Communist in the view of the phrase's user," including U.S. Congressmen who supported the Sandinistas against the Contras in Nicaragua, and Dutch socialists.[3] After U.S. President Ronald Reagan concluded negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, conservative political leader Howard Phillips declared Reagan to be a "useful idiot for Soviet propaganda."[20][4]

The label "useful idiot" was applied both to supporters and opponents of the Iraq War. Conservative political commentator Monica Charen applied the label to liberal U.S. Congressmen who had toured Iraq before the war, arguing that they had been manipulated by the Iraqi government.[21] Tony Judt wrote that liberal supporters of the Iraq War and the War on Terror had made themselves "useful idiots" of George W. Bush's foreign policy. Judt argued that liberals saw these wars through an altruistic lens that Bush's neo-conservative allies did not share, and provided an "ethical fig-leaf" for "brutish policies."[22][23][24]

In 2007, professor of political science Peter W. Sperlich labeled George Bernard Shaw and Lion Feuchtwanger "useful idiots" for their comments on the Soviet famine of 1932-33 and the Moscow Trials, respectively.[25] In 2012, Guardian correspondent Luke Harding wrote that Walter Duranty, a New York Times correspondent in Moscow during the 1930s, allowed himself to be "duped" by Soviet authorities, and is depicted in a play by contemporary reporter Malcolm Muggeridge as a "quintessential 'useful idiot.'"[26]

In the end of 2016, the former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright[27] and the Editorial Board of The New York Times applied the term to President-elect Donald Trump.[28] Michael Morell, former acting CIA director, wrote: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."[29] Michael Hayden, former director of both the US National Security Agency and the CIA, described Trump as a "useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited."[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "useful idiot". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2017.
  2. ^ Holder, R. W. (2008), "useful fool", Oxford Dictionary of Euphemisms, Oxford University Press, p. 394, ISBN 978-0199235179, 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.
  3. ^ a b c d Safire, William (12 April 1987). "On Language: Useful Idiots Of the West". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
  4. ^ a b c Boller, Paul F.; George, John H. (1989). They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes. Barnes & Nobles Books. ISBN 9781566191050.
  5. ^ Charen, Mona (2003), Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, Regnery Publishing, p. 10, ISBN 978-0895261397
  6. ^ a b Cortesi, Arnold (21 June 1948). "Communist Shift is seen in Europe; Tour of Two Italian Leaders Behind Iron Curtain Held to Doom Popular Fronts". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Stogel, Syd (1955). "'Useful Idiots' Keep Italy Reds Strong". American Federation of Labor News-Reporter.
  8. ^ "Italy: From the Slums". Time. 13 January 1958.
  9. ^ "WORLD: The City as a Battlefield: A Global Concern". Time. 2 November 1970.
  10. ^ Lamar, Jr., Jacob V. (14 December 1987). "An Offer They Can Refuse". Time.
  11. ^ Poniewozik, James (3 November 2009). "TV Marks Obama Anniversary with Documentaries, Aliens". Time.
  12. ^ Klein, Joe (26 November 2010). "Israel First, Yet Again". Time. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  13. ^ "Wednesday Words: Useful Idiots, Don 'Draping' and More". Time. 14 March 2012. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  14. ^ Ludwig von Mises, Planned Chaos, Foundation for Economic Education, 1947, p. 17 in electronic document.
  15. ^ "Yugoslavia Run by Russia, says Ex-Aide of Tito". Chicago Daily Tribune. 24 September 1946. p. 6.
  16. ^ Raditsa, Bogdan (1946). "Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World". Reader's Digest Service. Vol. 49.
  17. ^ 1959 Congressional Record, Vol. 105, Page A5653 (30 June)
  18. ^ Gibney, Frank (1961). The Khrushchev Pattern. Duell, Sloan and Pearce. p. 8.
  19. ^ Braden, Spruille (1971). Diplomats and Demagogues: the Memoirs of Spruille Braden. Arlington House. p. 496.
  20. ^ Smith, Hendrick (17 January 1988). "The Right Against Reagan". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  21. ^ Charen, Monica (October 2004). "Useful Idiots: Then and Now". St. Croix Review. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  22. ^ Judt, Tony (21 September 2006). "Bush's Useful Idiots". London Review of Books. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  23. ^ Ryan, Maria (2011). "Bush's "Useful Idiots": 9/11, the Liberal Hawks and the Cooption of the "War on Terror"". Journal of American Studies. 45 (4): 667–693. doi:10.1017/S0021875811000909.
  24. ^ von Hoffman, Nicholas (23 October 2006). "Useful Idiots". The Nation. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  25. ^ Sperlich, Peter W. (2007). The East German Social Courts: Law and Popular Justice in a Marxist-Leninist Society. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 17.
  26. ^ Harding, Luke (22 May 2012). Expelled: A Journalist's Descent into the Russian Mafia State. St. Martin's Press. p. 104. ISBN 9781137048387.
  27. ^ Albright: Trump fits the mold of Russia's 'useful idiot' by Madeleine Albright
  28. ^ The Editorial Board (15 December 2016), "Donald Trump's Denial About Russia", The New York Times, retrieved 12 March 2018, There could be no more 'useful idiot,' to use Lenin's term of art, than an American president who doesn't know he's being played by a wily foreign power.
  29. ^ Morell, Michael J. (12 August 2016). "Opinion - I Ran the C.I.A. Now I'm Endorsing Hillary Clinton". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  30. ^ Hayden, Michael (3 November 2016). "Former CIA chief: Trump is Russia's useful fool". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 March 2018.

External links

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