Thucydides411 (talk | contribs) →Use of the term: We don't need every random mention of this phrase - the article would be millions of bytes long if we included every use like this. |
Undid revision 827881831 by Thucydides411 (talk)Restore longstanding consensus Tag: Undo |
||
Line 21: | Line 21: | ||
After [[Ronald Reagan|U.S. President Ronald Reagan]] concluded negotiations with Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev|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 name="nyt-17-jan-1988">{{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}}</ref><ref name="they-never-said-it"/> |
After [[Ronald Reagan|U.S. President Ronald Reagan]] concluded negotiations with Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev|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 name="nyt-17-jan-1988">{{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}}</ref><ref name="they-never-said-it"/> |
||
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]]|access-date=19 July 2017|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 Hayden (general)|Michael Hayden]], former director of both the US [[National Security Agency]] and the [[CIA]], writing in ''[[The Washington Post]]'' in November 2016, described Donald Trump as a ''polezni durak'', and he cited as translation of the term: "the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited".<ref>{{Cite news | authorlink = Michael Hayden (general)|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 = 19 July 2017}}</ref> |
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]]|access-date=19 July 2017|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 Hayden (general)|Michael Hayden]], former director of both the US [[National Security Agency]] and the [[CIA]], writing in ''[[The Washington Post]]'' in November 2016, described Donald Trump as a ''polezni durak'', and he cited as translation of the term: "the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited".<ref>{{Cite news | authorlink = Michael Hayden (general)|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 = 19 July 2017 | quote = We have really never seen anything like this. Former acting CIA director Michael Morell says that Putin has cleverly recruited Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation. I'd prefer another term drawn from the arcana of the Soviet era: polezni durak. That's the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited. That's a pretty harsh term, and Trump supporters will no doubt be offended. But, frankly, it's the most benign interpretation of all this that I can come up with right now.}}</ref> |
||
== See also == |
== See also == |
Revision as of 12:32, 27 February 2018
A useful idiot (also useful fool[1], Russian: полезный идиот) is "a dupe of the Communists", usually a citizen of a non-communist country sympathetic to the Soviet Union who is susceptible to propaganda and is cynically misused.[1][2] The phrase was used by Soviet communists and the KGB to refer to persons in the West their country had successfully manipulated.[1] The phrase is often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but it remains controversial whether he used this term in his publications.
Origin of the term
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-71043-0003%2C_Wladimir_Iljitsch_Lenin.jpg/170px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-71043-0003%2C_Wladimir_Iljitsch_Lenin.jpg)
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."[2]
In her book, Useful Idiots, 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 social-democratic Italian paper L'Umanità.[6][2] 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 1946 a Readers Digest article titled "Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World", written by a "high ranking official of the Yugoslav Government", Bogdan Raditsa (Bogdan Radica). "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."[15] Note, however, that budala in Serbo-Croat translates as "a fool", not "an innocent".
Use of the term
The term was applied to American journalist Walter Duranty and playwright George Bernard Shaw who denied the existence of Holodomor,[16] to writer Lion Feuchtwanger who observed Moscow Trials and came to conclusion that the Bolshevik leaders were actually guilty of conspiracy and treason,[17] and to many others.
The expression appears in books Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy by Richard H. Shultz and KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer's Handbook by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin. According to the KGB terminology, all their agents of influence could be divided into three categories: (a) "Intelligence Directorate operatives and their recruited agents", (b) Fellow travelers, and (c) "unwitting agents", ones they called “useful idiots”. [18] According to Spruille Braden, the term was used by Joseph Stalin to refer to what Braden called "countless innocent although well-intentioned sentimentalists or idealists" who aided the Russian agenda.[19]
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]
In the end of 2016, the former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright[21] and the Editorial Board of The New York Times applied the term to President-elect Donald Trump.[22] Michael Hayden, former director of both the US National Security Agency and the CIA, writing in The Washington Post in November 2016, described Donald Trump as a polezni durak, and he cited as translation of the term: "the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited".[23]
See also
References
- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ a b c "useful idiot". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2017.
- ^ a b Safire, William (12 April 1987). "On Language: Useful Idiots Of the West". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
- ^ a b Boller, Paul F.; George, John H. (1989). They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes. Barnes & Nobles Books. ISBN 9781566191050.
- ^ Charen, Mona (2003), Useful Idiots, Regnery Publishing, p. 10, ISBN 978-0895261397
- ^ 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.
{{cite news}}
: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|work=
(help) - ^ Stogel, Syd (1955). "'Useful Idiots' Keep Italy Reds Strong". American Federation of Labor News-Reporter.
- ^ "Italy: From the Slums". Time. 13 January 1958.
- ^ "WORLD: The City as a Battlefield: A Global Concern". Time. 2 November 1970.
- ^ Lamar, Jr., Jacob V. (14 December 1987). "An Offer They Can Refuse". Time.
- ^ Poniewozik, James (3 November 2009). "TV Marks Obama Anniversary with Documentaries, Aliens". Time.
- ^ Klein, Joe (26 November 2010). "Israel First, Yet Again". Time.
- ^ "Wednesday Words: Useful Idiots, Don 'Draping' and More", Time, 14 March 2012.
- ^ Ludwig von Mises, Planned Chaos, Foundation for Economic Education, 1947, p. 17 in electronic document.
- ^ Bogdan Raditsa, "Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World", Reader's Digest Service.
- ^ Expelled: A Journalist's Descent into the Russian Mafia State by Luke Harding, page 104.
- ^ The East German Social Courts: Law and Popular Justice in a Marxist-Leninist Society, by Peter W. Sperlich, page 17-19
- ^ Russian political warfare: origin, evolution, and application by Dickey, Jeffrey V., Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School, pages 55-56
- ^ Diplomats and Demagogues: the Memoirs of Spruille Braden, Spruille Braden, Arlington House, 1971
- ^ Smith, Hendrick (17 January 1988). "The Right Against Reagan". The New York Times Magazine.
- ^ Albright: Trump fits the mold of Russia's 'useful idiot' by Madeleine Albright
- ^ The Editorial Board (15 December 2016), "Donald Trump's Denial About Russia", The New York Times, retrieved 19 July 2017,
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.
- ^ Hayden, Michael (3 November 2016). "Former CIA chief: Trump is Russia's useful fool". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
We have really never seen anything like this. Former acting CIA director Michael Morell says that Putin has cleverly recruited Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation. I'd prefer another term drawn from the arcana of the Soviet era: polezni durak. That's the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited. That's a pretty harsh term, and Trump supporters will no doubt be offended. But, frankly, it's the most benign interpretation of all this that I can come up with right now.