USEFUL IDIOTS
Baker, John
JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM
Fri Jun 13 21:12:49 UTC 2014
You didn't quote the New York Times example you found, Fred, but I think it may be key to the phrase's origin.
The Times example is from an article by Arnaldo Cortesi, Communist Shift Is Seen in Europe, June 21, 1948, p. 14, about the apparent abandonment of Popular Fronts by Communists. The last two paragraphs in the article:
"L'Umanita, right-wing Socialist newspaper, emphasized that if the Communists were abandoning Popular Fronts this would have far-reaching effects on the congress of Italian left-wing Socialists in Genoa next week.
L'Umanita said the Communists would give the "useful idiots" of the left-wing Socialist party the choice of merging with the Communist party or getting out. It declared this would mark the end of the pro-Communist policy followed by the left-wing Socialist leader, Pietro Nenni."
The next use of the term I see is in an article that appeared in multiple newspapers without attribution; I don't know if it's from a wire service, the newspapers were under common ownership, or what. It was entitled Useful Idiots and appeared in, among other venues, the Miami News-Record, June 28, 1948, p. 6, also about the apparent abandonment of Popular Fronts.
"So the Kremlin and the Cominform apparently feel that rougher methods will be needed from now on. Thus their allies who still believe in the ballot box will be of no further use to them.
Such fellow-traveling allies are called "useful idiots" by an Italian publication. Like the Wallace followers in the United States, they have ignored the record of the last 12 years. Wherever the Communists have had the power, from Madrid in the Spanish civil war to Czechoslovakia today, they have persecuted or killed the useful idiots who refused to accept absolute dictation."
Note that the original user of the phrase, L'Umanita, was a right-wing newspaper, presumably meaning it was an enemy of the Communists. However, by 1951 we start seeing the phrase attributed to the Communists themselves. From Communists' Methods Effective In Undermining Bulgarian Army, Pacific Stars & Stripes, July 5, 1951, p. 9:
"Other officers who will be considered as specialists or "Spets," as the Communists call them, are usually men without a definite ideology of their own, without conviction of their own, with a feeble mind, or men who fall into the hands of Communists for one reason or another - for some private mistake in their private life, for money, or simply because they are afraid. The Communists call these men the "useful idiots" - and they are."
John Baker
-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 4:35 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: USEFUL IDIOTS
Google Books has what appears to be a 1951 book by Giovanni Engely, titled Italy Today, with the following on page 20: "These intellectuals apparently ignore the fact that idea and practice of justice are banned from all countries under Communist rule, but they very well serve the cause of Communism as 'useful idiots' as Lenin called them."
Fred Shapiro
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Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press
Yale Law School ISBN 0300107986
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Shapiro, Fred [fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 4:25 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: USEFUL IDIOTS
I don't have full access to the Time Magazine archives, but it looks like there is probably an article mentioning "useful idiots" and "Lenin" in Time, Jan. 13, 1958. The article appears to be headlined "Italy: From the Slums."
Fred Shapiro
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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of ADSGarson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 1:50 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: USEFUL IDIOTS
Thanks Fred and LH. There is an earlier attribution of "useful idiots"
to Lenin that may interest you in the Congressional Record in 1959.
Lenin died in 1924. I posted this to the ADS list back on August 14,
2010 during a previous discussion of "useful idiots". Barry added it
to his entry on the topic.
[ref] 1959 June 30, Congressional Record - Appendix, Page A5653,
Column 2, "Useful Idiots: Extension of Remarks of Hon. Edward J.
Derwinski of Illinois in the House of Representatives, Tuesday, June
30, 1959" (LexisNexis Congressional Record Permanent Digital
Collection)[/ref]
[Begin excerpt]
This is the cold war. The leaders of the states and of the nations,
instead of going in droves to Moscow and becoming what Lenin calls
useful idiots in the Communist game, should go to Mackinac Island,
Mich., to the moral rearmament ideological war college where thousands
of our friends from the free world are coming to plan global strategy
to answer communism.
[End excerpt]
Garson
On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 7:56 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: Re: USEFUL IDIOTS
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jun 12, 2014, at 5:23 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>
>> In quick searches of the newspaper databases, I see the earliest usage of "useful idiot" or "useful idiots" in a Communist context as N.Y. Times, June 21, 1948.
>
> Ah, predating Sen. McCarthy's reign by a couple of years...
>
>> The earliest usage I see that attributes "useful idiot" or "useful idiots" to Lenin is Christian Science Monitor, July 14, 1961.
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>
> Thanks. An attribution without actual citation, I take it.
>
> LH
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Laurence Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 8:19 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Fellow Traveler"
>>
>> On the same topic, is there an early cite for "useful idiot", which was supposedly used by Lenin in this sense, but apparently hasn't been found in Lenin's work? It's been revived in the right-wing blogosphere and/or Fox News to characterize Democrats who have been putatively "duped" by leftists, Islamists, or whoever.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> On Jun 11, 2014, at 7:51 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>>
>>> fellow traveler (OED, 2., 1936)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 1933 _N.Y. Times Book Review_ 23 Apr. 2 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) ROMANOF is a "fellow traveler," as Trotsky phrased it, more generally and sympathetically read by the Western world than by Russia.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Fred Shapiro
>>>
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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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