The term
useful idiot, for a foolish person whose views can be taken advantage of for political purposes, was used in a British periodical as early as 1864. In relation to the Cold War, the term appeared in a June 1948
New York Times article on contemporary Italian politics ("Communist shift is seen in Europe"), argued that the
Italian Socialist Party, which had entered into a
popular front with the
Italian Communist Party (PCI) known as the
Popular Democratic Front during the
1948 Italian general election, would be given the option to either merge with the PCI or leave the alliance.
Time first used the phrase in January 1958, writing that some members of
Christian Democracy considered social activist
Danilo Dolci a
useful idiot for Communist causes. It has since recurred in that periodical's articles, from the 1970s, to the 1980s, to the 2000s, and 2010s. In the
Russian language, the term "useful fools" (,
tr. polezniye duraki) was already in use in 1941. It was mockingly used against Russian "
nihilists" of the 1860s who, for Polish agents, were said to be no more than "useful fools and silly enthusiasts." While the phrase
useful idiots of the West has often been attributed to
Vladimir Lenin, he is not documented as ever having used the phrase. In a 1987 article for
The New York Times, American journalist
William Safire reported about his search for the origin of the term. He wrote that a senior reference librarian at the
Library of Congress, Grant Harris, had been unable to find the phrase in Lenin's works. Safire was also out of luck contacting
TASS and the New York headquarters of the Communist Party. He concluded that, lacking solid evidence, a cautious phrasing must be used, e.g., "a phrase attributed to Lenin..." == Select usage ==