In political jargon, a useful idiot is a person perceived as a propagandist for a cause whose goals of which they are not fully aware, and who is used cynically by the leaders of the cause.
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Attribution
The phrase is often attributed to Lenin in the West. However, in a 1987 article, American journalist William Safire noted that a Library of Congress librarian had not been able to find the phrase in Lenin's works. The book They Never Said It also suggests the attribution is false.
Use in Russian
In the Russian language, the equivalent term "useful fools" (Russian: полезные дураки, tr. polezniye duraki) was already in use in 1941. It was mockingly used against Russian "nihilists" of 1860s who, for Polish agents, were said to be no more than "useful fools and silly enthusiasts".
This term (singular: полезный дурак, tr. polezni durak) was attributed to Lenin by some Russian writers, e.g., by Vladimir Bukovsky (1984).
Use in English
In the memoir of actor Alexander Granach, the phrase was used in the description of a boyhood incident in a shtetl in Western Ukraine.
In 1948 (June), New York Times used the term in an article on contemporary Italian politics, citing the social-democratic Italian paper L'Umanità.
In 1958 (January), Time magazine started to use the phrase.
In 1959, the Economic Research Council's journal Economic Digest not only mentions the phrase but attributes it to Lenin.
In 1961, the term appears in an American magazine when referring to Jean-Paul Sartre.
In 1962, the term appeared (also attributed to Lenin) in the book Red Herring by retired U.S. Army Col. Gunther E. Hartel.
In 1969, American political magazine Dissent had begun to use the term.
In 2016, the term was used by the Editorial Board of The New York Times to describe President-elect Donald Trump.
Also in 2016, polezni durak, the singular of the Russian term, was used by Michael Hayden, former NSA director and former CIA director to describe Trump, "That’s the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited."
Useful innocents
A similar term, useful innocents, appears in Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises' "Planned Chaos" (1947). Von Mises claims the term was used by communists for liberals that von Mises describes as "confused and misguided sympathizers". The term useful innocents also appears in a Readers Digest article (1946) titled "Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World", authored by Bogdan Raditsa (Bogdan Radica), a "high ranking official of the Yugoslav Government". Raditsa says: "In the Serbo-Croat language the communists have a phrase for true democrats who consent to collaborate with them for 'democracy.' It is Korisne Budale, or Useful Innocents." Although Raditsa translates the phrase as "Useful Innocents", the word budala (plural: budale) actually translates as "fool" and synonyms thereof.
The French equivalent, "Innocents utiles" or Useful innocents, was used in a newspaper article title in 1946.