Talk:Useful idiot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern Usage

Sorry to start a new topic of discussion here, I don't edit Wikipedia much (especially not at work) and I just wanted to say that the ONLY time I've ever heard the phrase "useful idiot" in modern times was in a book by a recent emmigrant from the Bush administration that was an evangelical Christian and was upset that Bush and the Bush administration often referred to evangelicals as "useful idiots". I suppose it's maybe a British vs. US thing, but what is currently put down in the Modern Usage section does not seem to be true for the US.165.206.43.5 (talk) 14:38, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Attribution

This phrase is attributed to Lenin although the phrase was not even mentioned in the US untl decades after Lenin's death, and then it was attributed to Lenin decades after that. I mention this and VeryVerily reverts me saying it is an "anti-capitalist rant". In an attempt to be annoying, he has gone through my edit history and seems to be reverting my edits willy-nilly. Ruy Lopez 12:19, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I consider "unacceptable" people vandalizing my user page with obscenities, implicit death threats, and swastikas. I can't believe you're taking Richardchilton's, I mean Hanpuk's, I mean Ruy Lopez's edits seriously. Those "capitalists" are at it again! And isn't the 2nd para a wee bit POV? Well you guys have your fun, I'll check back on it in a bit. VeryVerily 13:43, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I know nothing about vandalism of your user page. As far as I can tell, neither User:198.165.90.75 nor User:Ruy Lopez has made any edit to your user page. On the face of it, Ruy's edits may be controversial, but do not appear to fall within any reasonable definition of vandalism. Blind reversions without comment or justification are not an acceptable approach for addressing POV edits--at least not at first sight. older≠wiser 14:00, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
The vandal is switching IP addresses, obviously. Here's a selection of my user page history, since you don't appear to have looked yourself: [1]. I did not say the edits were vandalism, I said the editor is a vandal. Big difference. And I don't agree with your last statement; people who go around propagandizing article after article should just be reverted. They know the rules. I've been haggling with these people for over a year now. See User talk:Shorne for Adam Carr's thoughts on this. VeryVerily 22:52, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, that is very interesting. However, where is the evidence that either User:198.165.90.75 nor User:Ruy Lopez is responsible for that? Without specific evidence, I'd say you are way out of bounds to go around reverting anyone who happens to disagree with you because you think they might be the vandal. older≠wiser 00:58, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
I am certain that User:198.165.90.75 is the same vandal. Do you really want evidence or is that a rhetorical question? VeryVerily 01:04, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps you are right about User:198.165.90.75, I was unaware of the matter on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration regarding User:Turrican, you might have mentioned that--I just happened upon it. However, before that you did revert Ruy with a dismissive summary of "rv anti-capitalist rant". While I agree that Ruy's edit to this may be overly biased, it does not appear to be something meriting a reversion on sight. older≠wiser 01:18, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
It seems you've stumbled into something far larger than you realized. See also Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Richardchilton. Haggling with this guy is getting old. VeryVerily 03:33, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

User:Ultramarine insists on adding a quote which he attributes to Lenin, but which does not appear in any of Lenin's works. The source he gives [2] is a book that is not available online. Thus, at this point, I see absolutely no proof that Lenin ever said (or wrote) anything of the sort. I am waiting for Ultramarine to explain the origin of that quote. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 21:23, 19 July 2005 (UTC) Also, please provide context (i.e. Lenin is claimed to have written the following in <year>, as part of <larger document from which the quote is drawn>, addressing the subject of X, etc.) -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 21:26, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

This is censorship of the worst kind. I have given a source in extreme detail that you can verify. Ultramarine 21:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
No you haven't. When you quote someone, giving a source means giving the name of the work in which that someone wrote the quote. All I see from you is a link to a book (which I can't read) that supposedly says Lenin said that quote. This is not proof. At least give all the details that your book gives on that quote (I assume this Edvard Radzinsky makes some comments regarding the context in which Lenin said/wrote that quote, doesn't he?) -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 21:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
You are doing gross and outright censoring. Ultramarine 21:43, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
How so? If I write a book claiming that you said "My name is John", and someone else tries to use my book as proof that Ultramarine said "My name is John", shouldn't he be challenged or asked to authenticate his sources? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 21:46, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
There is nothing in Wikipedia guidelines that says that the source has to be online. The quote is a verifiable fact, and quoted in a book by Russian scholar. But this is kind of amusing, probably the worst case of censorship I have seen on Wikipedia. Ultramarine 21:52, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
The fact that the source is not online is irrelevant, and I never objected to it. What I do object to is your refusal to explain HOW your source claims to have found this Lenin quote, WHEN was the quote written by Lenin and WHAT is the document and context in which it appears. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 21:55, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Ultramarine, please follow Wikipedia's civility polices and refrain from accusing editors of censorship when they are raising concerns about your edits. 172 | Talk 22:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

The quote is self-explaining. You make endless new demands in order to censor the quote, netiher of which are required by Wikipedia guidelines. I have given my source in great detail. This is censorship of the worst kind. Ultramarine 22:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Again, see etiquette. Crying censorship each time an editor raises concerns about your edits is not assuming good faith, and yet another example that will reflect poorly on you in an RfC on your behavior. 172 | Talk 22:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Again, if I write a book claiming that you said "My name is John", and someone else tries to use my book as proof that Ultramarine said "My name is John", shouldn't he be challenged or asked to authenticate his sources? But have it your way - I've created a template for you to fill in with data from your book. Failure to do so will be interpreted as an admission that the data does not exist, and therefore the quote is fabricated. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 22:18, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I only request that you do not censor the facts when I have given a very detailed, verifiable source by a scholar. This will look very interesting in any Rfc. Ultramarine 22:19, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
The fact is that Edvard Radzinsky claims Lenin said that quote. That is what the article should say. However, an unsubstantiated claim is worthless, even if made by a scholar. Therefore, I am asking you to look in your book and explain the following issues:
  1. Since this quote does not appear in any of Lenin's works, how does Edvard Radzinsky allege to have obtained it?
  2. What is the name of the secret Lenin document in which this quote supposedly appears? When was it published, and for what purpose? Who was it addressed to? (notice the prominent "we must" - who is this "we"?)
  3. What is the context surrounding this quote in this secret document? What does the document talk about?
These are very important questions, and it is vital to have them answered in order to give our readers a clear picture of the situation (how many of them do you think will buy Edvard Radzinsky's book just for the sake of reading more about this quote?). You have the book, and I do not. Therefore, you can present the information given by the book, while I cannot. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 07:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
The answers to these questions are now in the text,[3] Except for the date of Annenkov's emigration, they are on the same page of Radzinsky's book, and the obvious entry in his bibliography. (His English text, at least, does not footnote.) The original text has clearly left Mihnea, and may well have left other readers, with the impression of some recently revealed secret document. It requires all my reserves of good faith to describe this as, at best, severe carelessness. Septentrionalis 05:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Returning to the question of "useful idiots," the is an important point to be made is that while the term has often been attributed to Lenin and Stalin, there is no evidence that either of them ever used this term. There is not a single occurrence of the term in any of Lenin's writings. I checked references to the term in Jstor, a database of scholarly articles, including those in the field of Soviet studies, and found no other way to attribute the term to Lenin. It is possible, however, that the term originated with anticommunists in the 1930s or 1940s, when the earliest citations of the term can be found. 172 | Talk 22:32, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Lenin's "rope" comment

Here is a related quote attributed to Lenin and found in Bartleby (http://www.aol.bartleby.com/73/246.html):

AUTHOR: Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870–1924)

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.

ATTRIBUTION: VLADIMIR ILICH (ULYANOV) LENIN, as reported by I. U. Annenkov in an article entitled, “Remembrances of Lenin,” Novyi Zhurnal/New Review, September 1961, p. 147.

Annenkov recounts (pp. 144–47) a visit to the Moscow Institute of V. I. Lenin shortly after Lenin’s death, where he examined a number of Lenin manuscripts consisting principally of short and fragmentary notes, some of which were so interesting that he copied them. This Russian-language journal is published in New York City.

The popular and widely-quoted paraphrase, The capitalists are so hungry for profits that they will sell us the rope to hang them with, has often been considered spurious because it had not been found in Lenin’s published works.

Ahasuerus 22:40, 31 August 2005 (UTC)Ahasuerus

[edit] Lenin Quotations

There's been a cottage industry on the Right in fabricating Lenin quotations (the more academic being supposedly sourced from What Is To Be Done). There are many in the book, They Never Said It by Paul F Boller Jr and John George, which refers to the ludicrous American publication Lincoln and Lenin among others.--Jack Upland 00:02, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hate Speech?

KKK has made very desparaging comments about the blacks. Those are certainly hate speeches. Nonetheless Wikipedia reports them. It is not up to us to make judgments whether the views of a certain group is hate speech or not and censor them based on that evaluation. We only state what they say and leave the moral evaluation of their statements to the readers. (17:25, 23 October OceanSplash)

Ocean, stay cool here. I started this article back in July 2004 and it has come along nicely. I am watching the edits and will help out as needed. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 23:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi Rex, nice to meet you. :) Kinda was feeling lonely like in hostile lands! For a while I thought Wikipedia is a place between Mecca and Medina. LOL OceanSplash 00:39 24 October 2005
Take care to comment on the validity of the edit, not the editor :) Rex071404 216.153.214.94
Nothing wrong with giving examples of how the term has been used post-9/11, of course, but the current layout is a bit confusing. Add a summary of each tendency that the examples are representative of, perhaps? Ahasuerus 01:55, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi Ahasuerus: Not sure if I understand you. Could you please explain a bit more :) OceanSplash 00:2:05 24 October 2005
Well, the first paragraph talks about the term being used as a "pejorative used by political conservatives against political liberals". Fair enough. But then the next two paragraphs veer off to discuss Islamic extremism, fascism, etc. Without any explanation, it's hard to figure out what the examples in the last two paragraphs are supposed to illustrate or whether they are related to the first paragraph in any way. Make sense? :) Ahasuerus 02:42, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


Well, dear Ahasuerus: It is actually difficult to edit any page in Wikipedia without Muslims jumping at you and trying to censor you with all sorts of excuses. You must understand that the freedom of speech for Muslims is an alien concept. In Islamic countries if you say something against Islam they kill you. Where they can't kill you, they censor you. Wikipedia seems to be dominated by Muslims. This of course is not true in all the pages where Muslims have no interest, but when the interest of Islam comes in, they can be quite bullish in making their word prevail. But that is another story. This article started with some explanation like this:

In recent years especially after the 9/11 some observers, including Muslim dissidents have stated that Islam presents a threat bigger than Nazism not to just the Western world but to all non-Islamic countries. They have labeled those who defend Islam and try to be politically correct about it, the today’s useful idiots.

[Ali Sina] states: “They are idiots because they speak without knowledge of Islam and its threat to mankind and they are useful to the Islamists with whose help they can penetrate the non-Muslim countries and destroy them from within.” [4] The same author writes: “More abhorrent than war is making peace with evil. In the words of the 18th Century British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Those who advocate peace with Islam are idiots of this century. If we do not stand against Islam it will grow and then billions will die. Trying to appease Muslims is foolish. It is informed by ignorance of Islam. Most cancers are treatable, if detected in time. But if ignored, they will grow to a stage that will kill you. Today we have the choice. We can either fight Islam and extirpate it before it threatens our existence or wait and face the apocalypses.” [5]

Muslims obviously don't like Ali Sina. For some reason anything you post here from him they will delete at once. So the above passage that explained the concept was deleted. The administrator SlimVirgin despite claiming impartiality, has yet to show that in actions. I could be wrong but for reasons that I explained to her, I have still to be convinced of that claim. I found out that she is Iranian, like Ali Sina, but of course most Iranians are still Muslims. She even once tried to discredit Ali Sina saying that he is Islamophobic. Obviously she sees genuine criticism of Islam unwarranted and interprets that as Islamophobia. My judgement about her is just based on my first impression and I could be wrong. I have explained to her my concern about her impartiality already and I hope she will eventually show I had misjudged her.

In Wikipedia there is a lot of Islamic propaganda which are not true at all, but generally critical views about Islam do not survive. Why? If Wikipedia is impartial shouldn’t we give equal space to both sides? Would we accept if e.g. scientologist or any other cultists try to take over the Wikipedia and disallow any criticism of their cult? What is happening is very disturbing. There are hundreds of pages in Wikipedia that are misleading because they are edited and controlled by Muslims and as soon as you try to post anything showing the other side of the coin they revert it and even call your contribution “hate speech”. What about the Quran? Isn’t that book a hate speech?

Funny thing is that they throw at you the basic rules of Wikipedia when in reality it is they who constanly breach those rules.

If you try to write anything that Muslims don’t like they will delete it with invalid justifications. This is a very disturbing trend. For example the quotes of Ali Sina were removed because, as they said, he is not notable. There are 200,000 pages talking about faith freedom international. There have been death threats in Islamic sites against him, there are a few Islamic sites created just to refute him. Doesn’t all that say that he is notable at least to be quoted? Finally if he is notable enough to have a page in Wikipedia why his quotes should not be published?

I am not familiar with the structure of Wikipedia, but I suppose there must be some committee that would check into complaints. (All I am hoping is that this committee is not already taken over by Islamists) Is there a forum where important questions such as the direction Wikipedia is taking is discussed?

Sorry, this subject might have not belonged to this page but these are things I would like to discuss. Is there a place to do that? My point is that if Wikipedia loses its impartiality and becomes the guardian angel of a certain cult or religion, it loses its credibility fast. OceanSplash 05:13 24 October 2005

Would something as basic as:
Since the 9/11 attacks, the term "useful idiot" has been used by some Western critics of Islamic extremism to describe those who would take a softer line, e.g.: [...]
be controversial? Ahasuerus 12:18, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Ali Sina is a non-notable source. Please stop adding his/her quotes.Yuber(talk) 23:26, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Highlighting in Lenin's Quote

The removed highlighting in Lenin's quotes was taken verbatim from the Yale University text, where it represented Lenin's underlining as per standard academic quotation practices. It does look erratic, but that was Lenin's style: lots of little notes, side notes, double and triple underlining, etc. I will restore the Yale University version in a day or two unless there are other comments. Ahasuerus 11:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Biased Editing

Since the 9/11 attacks, the term "useful idiot" has been used by some conservatives to describe those who they think would take a softer line against Islamist terrorism. For example, Anthony Browne wrote in Britain's The Times newspaper:

What kind of unbiased editing is this? Who is taking softer line against Islamic terrorism? The useful idiot is used to define people who take softer line in regards to Islam and Muslims in general and not the terrorists. This is twisting the facts and is very much misleading. OceanSplash 09:11 27 October 2005
Well, FrontPage.com is a conservative outlet, so that's reasonable enough, but I don't know where the Times contributor fits on the political spectrum. Perhaps "conservative" is too narrow a brush and should be removed until there is certainty that the term has been used only by conservatives?
As to whether the term is used to describe those who are opposed to Islamic terrorism or Islam in general, I believe the two quotes as given refer to "Islamists" and "Islamic extremists". Perhaps the sentence could be rephrased as follows:
Since the 9/11 attacks, the term "useful idiot" has been used by some Western commentators to describe those who they think would take a softer line against Islamic extremists. For example, Anthony Browne wrote in Britain's The Times newspaper...
? Ahasuerus 16:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] quoting the wrong person

The article states: "John Dewey in his 1928 book Impressions of Soviet Russia and the revolutionary world claimed that: "Lenin coined a paradoxical but accurate term for Western intellectuals who parroted Soviet propaganda, either in the misguided belief that it was true, or from willful ignorance. Such people he called 'useful idiots"

Actually, when you follow the link you can see that it isn't Dewey who writes this but the person who wrote the forward. 192.115.133.141 18:56, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out this important fact. I will edit the page accordingly. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 06:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] embarassment

The disclaimer shown here is completely inappropriate for an encyclopedia, and embaressing to me. I linked my classmates to this article to help them understand the term, and am sad to see you are reducing their opinion of the wikipedia with embaressing commentaries like that. I therefore retracted my suggestion that they visit this article. Sam Spade 10:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

How, exactly, is it embarassing? Please be specific; or rephrase it, retaining the information essential to the article. We can see that Sam is aggrieved, but it is unclear exactly what his grievance is. Septentrionalis 19:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

* Please note that from antiquity (as noted in the Code of Hammurabi) until recent times [6], the terms "deaf-mute" and "deaf and dumb" were analogous to "idiot." However, the above quote is unverified, and Lenin appears to be insulting western capitalists who would "desire to win [the] Soviet market."

This is not encyclopedic. Sam Spade 19:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
I fail to see how it is not encyclopedic. -- Nikodemos 10:29, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The code of Hammurabi and the legal definition of idiot should not be discussed here in some sort of crazy disclaimer. Also if the quote is unverified, verify it, or remove it. What is there now (and I am about to remove it) makes us look like fools. Sam Spade 10:51, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

"The code of Hammurabi and the legal definition of idiot should not be discussed here" - why not? It is useful to explain to the reader how the word was used in context. Do you have something against disclaimers...? -- Nikodemos 11:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I have something against insane disclaimers that reference the code of Hammurabi and the term "idiot", and then proceed to tell me what I just read is unverified, dubious content, yes. That sort of thing makes me think I am reading home-made funny pages, rather than an encyclopedia. Sam Spade 23:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I identify two distinct objections in the above paragraph:
  1. The code of Hammurabi and the term "idiot". The reason why this is mentioned is because the actual Lenin quote does not contain the word "idiot", so a reader might rightfully ask himself in what way is that quote related to the term "useful idiot".
  2. The disclaimer regarding unverified, dubious content. The reason why this is there is because the quote was not written by Lenin in any published document, and the first place it appeared was an American newspaper in 1962. I am sure you can see how dubious that origin is. Because of the dubious origin and the fact that the quote does not contain the word "idiot", I and other users have repeatedly attempted to remove it from the article. However, a different group of users and anon editors have kept adding it back, without explaining their reasons for it. The current version, including the disclaimer, is a compromise.
-- Nikodemos 20:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

But not an encyclopedic one. If you think the quote isn't lenins, cite it to the newspaper, or remove it. 00:13, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no evidence that it is Lenin's (unless you want to take the newspaper's word for it), so I'll remove it then. -- Nikodemos 01:48, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keynes edit

Source-wise, I think Keynes' book was The Economic Consequences of the Peace. EVOCATIVEINTRIGUE TALKTOME | EMAILME | IMPROVEME 23:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag

I had been asked why I added an NPOV tag to the article. I'll explain that and why I just removed it.

When I read the article, it looked to me like it had a thinly-cloaked tone of "this term is an insult used by nasty right-wingers against right-thinking liberals". When I came back to the article, I found that a few minor tweaks and some contextualizing additions were all that was really necessary to bring this article to NPOV status. Review my edits and let me know what you think. Peter G Werner 02:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I've made some tweaks, but the edits seem an improvement. Septentrionalis 15:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Confused

The intro is confusing: this was a term originally used by the Soviets of their sympathizers, which was then adopted by opponents of the Soviets to dismiss those same sympathizers?--Shtove 12:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag

The {{NPOV}} tag, which has been on and off this article several times in its history, was last added on December 25, by an anonymous editor, without any mention on this talk page or in the edit summary of the issue he or she considered a violation of WP:NPOV. As the tag is useless without elaboration of the nature of the objection, and as the article has changed significant since then anyway thanks to a number of recent removals of unverifiable content, I have taken the tag off. Chick Bowen 01:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Used just for left-wing

So, the term used for right-wing is just idiot?. ;-)

This wiki spend so much time explaining a unclear origins but left alone the meaning, in fact it's unclear to say that useful idiot is a fact or just a dysphemism . AFAIK a useful idiot is a persons that fight a pointless (earn nothing) fight. --Magallanes 15:25, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More sources

It seems that term is more commonly used in Russian language sources. For example,Andrey Piontkovsky blamed Larry King to be such an idiot (after his interview of Vladimir Putin in his book (Russian: Ремесло, которым занимается Ларри Кинг, сродни искусству вербовки и активных мероприятий. Так что можно сказать, что это была встреча двух профессионалов. Встреча, в которой подполковник внешней разведки КГБ Владимир Путин продемонстрировал гораздо более высокий профессиональный уровень. Владимир Ильич Ленин, у которого в обслуге не то поваром, не то охранником служил дедушка В. Путина, любил повторять: «Товарищи, нам нужны полезные буржуазные идиоты». [7]. Other examples:

"заученная для вербовки полезных буржуазных идиотов легенда" [8];
"Томас Фингар, Ванн ван Дипен, Кеннет Брилл... Вашингтонская тройка полезных буржуазных идиотов, как в свое время "кембриджская пятерка", действительно руководствовалась самыми благородными мотивами борьбы за мир во всем мире. Но на самом деле они приблизили мир к катастрофе." [9].
"Владимира Ленина: когда-то тот назвал западных политиков, которые искренне поддерживали большевиков, "полезными буржуазными идиотами". [10]. Biophys (talk) 19:41, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Compass

Remember the East Germans had a compass in their flag? I guess that meant they were good at math. But does that mean that Eastern Europeans are all good at math, or just the East Germans? I don't get that part.--76.245.121.112 (talk) 10:10, 13 April 2008 (UTC)