Talk:Useful idiot/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

OED contradicting itself?

One of the arguments made earlier against using the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as a source was that it supposedly contradicts itself. That argument was made in these diffs: [1][2] [3].

This argument was based on the fact that the OED says, "The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union," but then goes on to give the following example of usage: "1985 Washington Post (Nexis) 21 Apr. h2: Biddle is an unwitting traitor to his country, one of those liberals aptly described by the KGB as 'useful idiots'." The OED only gives that snippet of text from the Washington Post in order to illustrate how the term "useful idiot" is used. The OED does not endorse the views expressed in snippets of text it uses to illustrate usage. There's no contradiction here. The OED thinks the term does not reflect a Soviet phrase.

Interestingly, not even the Washington Post article claims that the phrase comes from the KGB. I found the article in question on LexisNexis, and it turns out that the Washington Post is quoting an unnamed alumnus of the Kent School who criticized an Episcopalian priest for opposing US involvement in Nicaragua:

Still a third alumnus, the decibels rising, said that "Biddle is an unwitting traitor to his country, one of those liberals aptly described by the KGB as 'useful idiots.'"
— "Old Boys in the War Zone," by Coleman McCarthy, Washington Post, 21 April 1985

Some unnamed alumnus of a college prep school thinks the term comes from the KGB. That's not evidence of anything. The Washington Post article is actually quite dismissive of this particular alumnus' views, and calls him a member of the "Old Boy network" and one of the "more excitable alumni." -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:22, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the editors that make these arguments keep repeating them without listening.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:19, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

A rational reading of the OED would limit its claim to does not seem to reflect any expression used before 1948. The OED has no interest in later uses; they may be borrowed from English (or Italian) - and they have no bearing on where L'Umanita got its phrase from. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:34, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Clearly. I think the earliest attribution to Lenin (who died in 1924) that we have here is 1961. And the KGB didn't exist until 1954. Both these usages postdate the earliest use in English or Italian. In the 1948 case, there is no suggestion they are quoting Soviet sources; on the contrary, they are making their own observations. It seems only later that people improved on the quote, saying that this was what, not the Italians, but Lenin or the KGB themselves said about their supporters.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:49, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

The earliest attribution to Lenin that we mention is actually from 1959 (still 11 years after the phrase is first recorded in English), in the Chicago Daily Calumet. But yes, the phrase itself (not the attribution to Lenin) does seem to originate with the question of popular fronts after WWII, when more centrist social democrats were worried that entering into coalitions with the Communist party would lead to them being politically exploited. Both the phrase "useful idiot" (regarding Italy) and "useful fool" (regarding Yugoslavia) are first recorded being used in this context. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:22, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Long Quotation of Michael Hayden

By far, the longest quotation in the article is of Michael Hayden. The entire usage section is only about 260 words long, but this one quote is about 96 words long. Granted, it's in a footnote, but is such a long quote actually needed? A short paraphrase is sufficient to illustrate how the term "useful idiot" is used.

I removed the extended quote (maintaining the paraphrased version) and was reverted, so I'm taking the issue here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

May I suggest you go on hiatus for a while and let other editors arrive to digest your rewrite of this article. Remember WP:OWN SPECIFICO talk 01:17, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

I asked for comments on the quotation. Your comment comes across as needlessly hostile. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:53, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

My reply was clear. The quotation is just fine. And I again suggest you stand back and let others react to all the changes since your return to active participation. SPECIFICO talk 03:02, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, let's keep that quote. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:44, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: Could you explain your reasoning for keeping the full quote? We don't need the entire quote in order to illustrate how the term is being used. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:12, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

It's especially interesting because it's Michael Hayden who quotes Michael Morell and then offers his own preference, and it's only his preference which is used. Both top intelligence men share a POV about Trump's relationship to Russia which Hayden considers rather "harsh", but also considers "benign", IOW the reality about Trump is much, much worse, and they know far more than we do. We'd be wise to listen closely to them.

It's not often one finds such a quote. Having the quote in the reference is a nice way to keep it without adding to the body. It does no harm there, so any desire to delete it is puzzling. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 06:11, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

The reason I don't think the full quote is necessary is simple: this article is about the phrase "useful idiot," not about Trump. There are many long quotes we could include in which one person calls another a "useful idiot." For example, Tony Judt wrote a long article in the London Review of Books accusing various liberal supporters of the Iraq War of being "useful idiots," yet we paraphrase his views succinctly. Whether or not "We'd be wise to listen closely to" Michael Hayden or Michael Morell is irrelevant here. What's relevant is that they called Trump a "useful idiot," and we don't need an extended quotation to explain that. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:38, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

No, we don't need it. This article is not about Trump.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:48, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Then we'll just have to agree to disagree. It's an extremely notable quote by two top intelligence officers about the most notable "useful fool" in modern history. If there were ever a quote to include in the body of the article, this would be it. Since it's not even in the body of the article, your concerns aren't just puzzling. Thanks to you this full quote has gotten legs on the internet and here. Quietly leaving it in the ref is wisest. That's what we often do with such things. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 15:02, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

It is about Trump and his enablers and apologists to the extent that reliable sources and notable commentators make that connection. SPECIFICO talk 16:00, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Can you show that reliable sources require us to quote Michael Hayden at great length in an article about the phrase "useful idiot"? The section he's quoted in is supposed to illustrate usage of the term "useful idiot," so that readers can understand how the term has been used throughout history. Tony Judt's usage of the term appears to have been discussed at much greater length in other secondary sources, yet we don't cite Judt at length, and we shouldn't - it's not necessary. The long quote by Hayden about Trump looks COATRACKed onto the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:16, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

There's not a shred of logic, fact, or policy in that statement, so it's not worth a response. Hayden't statement is important and altogether valid. SPECIFICO talk 04:25, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I asked you to show reliable sources that justify putting in an extended quote from Michael Hayden (far longer than any of the other quotes we use). Declaring that his statement is valid and important doesn't address my question. Belittling my request doesn't do so either. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:04, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Okay, without any belittling...what you say makes no sense. There is no policy for such a request, because how would "reliable sources require us to quote..." That makes no sense.

The quote is self-evidently extremely on-topic, from extremely notable experts, and about an extremely notable person. If one were to try to create a more uniquely usable quote, you'd have a hard time doing better than this one. (Seriously, give it a try.)

I'm beginning to think we should actually include it in the article in a quotebox. Will that make you happy? (Besides the appropriateness of that approach, it also has a bit of karma and WP:BOOMERANG flavor to it. ) -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 06:07, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

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. -- General Michael Hayden

I repeat: this article is not about Trump. Our introduction says: "In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as a propagandist for a cause the goals of which they are not fully aware, and who is used cynically by the leaders of the cause. The term was originally used to describe non-Communists regarded as susceptible to Communist propaganda and manipulation." What cause is Trump a propagandist for, apart from his own? Simply because someone called Trump a "useful idiot" doesn't make that worthy of mention here. Someone called Reagan a useful idiot, as previously discussed. This adds nothing to the article.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:20, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

References

@Bullrangifer: The logic of my request is obvious. I said that the article is about the term "useful idiot," not Trump specifically, so the long quotation is out of place. SPECIFICO replied that It is about Trump and his enablers and apologists to the extent that reliable sources and notable commentators make that connection. I then asked, Can you show that reliable sources require us to quote Michael Hayden at great length in an article about the phrase "useful idiot"? I'm asking how reliable sources establish Trump as so central to this article that it needs to have long quotations about him. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:28, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• The quotation is precisely on the subject of the page and should stay - agree with SPECIFICO. As about other recent changes - that's fine, no rush, everything can be fixed later. My very best wishes (talk) 20:46, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

So are many other quotations using the phrase "useful idiot." The question is how to apportion WP:DUE weight to each usage, based on WP:RS, keeping in mind that we are WP:NOTNEWS and making every effort to avoid WP:COATRACK. I'm not saying that the quotation shouldn't appear in some form in the article — but if it does, it should be alongside more pertinent, historically famous examples, and given less prominence than those. -Darouet (talk) 20:52, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Looking over the "Use of the term" section as it is right now, I don't think Hayden's comment is undue. -Darouet (talk) 23:51, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

The question is if it's due to quote it twice, the second time at far greater length, or to remove the second copy per Special:Diff/827881831. --BeebLee (talk) 01:26, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Twice is OK. Of course, time will tell and things change. If RS later tell us Trump turned out not to be useful or not to be an "idiot" then things will change. For example, it could turn out that Trump was being blackmailed and that he hated the Russians and hated to ignore their national security penetration of the US. At some point, useful idiot might no longer apply. From current appearances, the "useful idiot" model is cited by many notable observers. SPECIFICO talk 01:48, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

This is crazy recentism. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be a carnival to parade editors' passing obsessions and prejudices. This article is not about Trump, and we shouldn't include claims on the basis that they could be true (or false!). This article has suffered enough from editors trying to use it as a vehicle for their bizarre fantasies.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:29, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

You calling me crazy? And the second half? Want to stick to discussing the relevant issues? Let us know what you decide. SPECIFICO talk 14:44, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

This article is about a politically charged pejorative. We don't list usages because this is an objectively true list of idiots, we list usages only as much as they demonstrate how the term is used. So whether it's accurate in the opinion of many people, or if opinion swings to no longer consider it accurate, isn't a consideration. --BeebLee (talk) 16:37, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 17:47, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Bottom line is that it's exceptional that the circumspect and consummately professional Hayden spoke up and referred to Trump in this way, and it belongs in the article in both instances. Are we done yet? SPECIFICO talk 18:18, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Explain why it needs to be here.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:14, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Um, cuz it's been covered wide and deep around the world? First time an intelligence guy called a POTUS a useful idiot? We just follow the sources. SPECIFICO talk 03:22, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

There's been a fair amount of discussion now about this quote. There is consensus for paraphrasing Hayden's quote in the body of the article, as is already done. There is a slight majority that's concerned about giving undue weight to Hayden's quote by quoting it at length in the footnotes. No other example usage of "useful idiot" in the article is quoted at such length. Those who support the extended quotation have argued that Hayden is a great guy we should all listen to, but haven't addressed the fundamental question of due weight. I could equally argue that Tony Judt was also a great guy who deserves to be quoted at great length in this article, but I'm not arguing that, because I don't think this article needs to quote anyone at great length in order to illustrate how the term "useful idiot" is used in practice.

Unless someone wants to make the due weight case for keeping the extended quotation, I don't think it's productive to expend that much more energy on this particular issue. The extended quotation should be removed. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:27, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

No. It's not "in" the article. It's in the footnotes. Just keep it there. That's where we keep such things, for those few readers who check for more information. Most readers will never notice it there. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 06:54, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Readers can click on the link if they're so inclined. I still haven't seen anyone make the case, based on due weight, for this one quotation, in contrast to all the others we reference, being pasted at length into the footnotes. The arguments so far have been, essentially, that Hayden is consummately professional or that We'd be wise to listen closely. I think we'd be wise to listen closely to Tony Judt. That's irrelevant here though - we're just trying to illustrate how the term "useful idiot" is typically used. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:00, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and regardless of what we think of Trump, the quote is uniquely suited to this article, and probably better than any other example. This is an actual example of how it's used in the real world, from a real case. It can't get much better. Many of the arguments against using it are unabashed attempts to protect Trump, and it's tiring and unwikipedian, so just forget it's about him and look at the quote itself. It's really a good example. Two for the price of one. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 07:18, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Good point. I agree. My very best wishes (talk) 17:31, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Many of the arguments against using it are unabashed attempts to protect Trump What arguments were those? --BeebLee (talk) 18:00, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

That's irrelevant here. One should only discuss improvement of this page. BTW, this site is not an RS per se, but provides links to good RS. My very best wishes (talk) 20:34, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

OK looks like we have consensus for BullRangifer's view.to do the honors. SPECIFICO talk 20:38, 3 March 2018 (UTC)clarified22:50, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Don't say things like that. I have no idea what "honors" to do. I'm only interested in it staying in the refs where it is, IOW do nothing. If a consensus for including it IN the article develops, we can deal with it then. Right now it's not IN the article, but in the refs. Fine by me. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 22:39, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

@BullRangifer:: "[...] the quote is uniquely suited to this article [...] This is an actual example of how it's used in the real world, from a real case. It can't get much better." All of our examples are from the real world. How is the Hayden quote calling Trump a useful idiot more "uniquely suited to this article" than the Phillips quote about Reagan, or the Mona Charen quote about opponents of the Iraq War, or the Judt quote about liberal supporters of the Iraq War? They're all authentic examples of people calling other people "useful idiots."

"Many of the arguments against using it are unabashed attempts to protect Trump, and it's tiring and unwikipedian": I'd echo BeebLee and ask you to make your general accusation more concrete. Who is attempting to protect Trump, and how are they doing so? Looking above, I see arguments about due weight and coatracking. I don't see anyone attempting to protect Trump, or anyone trying to remove the two examples of people calling him a "useful idiot." The question is simply whether or not to paste a very long quotation into the footnote. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:47, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Thuc, you are getting deep into disruptive insistence on your POV denial of this consensus article content. Please stop, now. SPECIFICO talk 20:54, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

There's no need to personalize this dispute - please abide by WP:NPA. Looking at the above discussion, there are four editors who have expressed concerns about including the full quote, and three that support inclusion of the entire quote. The questions of due weight and coatracking have not been addressed by those who support inclusion. Given the numbers and the strength of the policy arguments, it looks like consensus leans in the direction of removal of the quotation. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:03, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Please read WP:NPA and don't misrepresent it to deflect from the talk page discussion. Your view has failed to carry the day. The quotation is going in the article and if you remove it against consensus, that will be highly unfortunate. SPECIFICO talk 21:34, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

"Your view has failed to carry the day." A majority of editors commenting in this section express the same concerns as I have. I've been discussing content and policy issues in this section. I've asked about how to reconcile giving one example usage inordinate space with due weight, but you've responded by calling me a tendentious editor and then accusing me of deflecting when I ask you to abide by WP:NPA. Please, let's stay on topic and not get derailed by personal issues. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:42, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

The quotation must be included (either directly or as a footnote) because otherwise the meaning of the statement is not clear. Simply telling "the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited" is actually a distortion, because all context was removed. One need full citation to provide context. I also have some difficulty with language. It seems the original expression in the publication by Morell was "unwitting agent". Is it the same as "useful idiot"? Yes, it seems to be based on usage like here and elsewhere. My very best wishes (talk) 21:15, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I think the context is clear from the way we paraphrase the quote right now, but if there's some clearer way to express it, without inflating the space given to this one example too much, then that's fine. About the Morell quote: he doesn't actually say "useful idiot" in his NYT Op-Ed, so I don't think it would belong in this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:19, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Let me clarify. Full quotation tells about the "useful idiot": "But, frankly, it's the most benign interpretation ...", meaning he might be actually not an unwitting, but "witting agent" - if there was in fact the "collusion", which is the subject of the entire investigation by Muller. That's why full quotation is necessary. My very best wishes (talk) 21:24, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Can you propose some short way to rephrase our text to make it clearer? We don't need to get across every nuance of Hayden's article. We just need to give a bit of context to illustrate how the term "useful idiot" is used. Each example we use (e.g., Mona Charen, Tony Judt and the debate surrounding the Iraq War, but we keep things short nevertheless) has a lot of context, but we have to keep each example to a minimum. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:45, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Every nuance?? 🤣🤣🤭 Useful.Idiot where's the nuance? Short and simple. These CIA guys don't mince words. SPECIFICO talk 22:03, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

OMG! There's some real confusion going on here.

The quote isn't IN the article. It's in the refs. The question isn't about INCLUSION on the page, but about preventing complete DELETION, because that's what some editors wish to do. Just keep it the way it is in the refs. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 22:49, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Let me suggest a middle ground that would allow deletion of the full quote from the refs. Instead we split it and include the views of both men:

• Michael Morell, former acting CIA director, says that "Putin has cleverly recruited Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation".
• Michael Hayden, former director of both the US National Security Agency and the CIA, says Trump is a "useful fool...manipulated by Moscow".

That would replace everything about this source. How does that look? -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 22:49, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

References

Since eagerness to get rid of the whole quote has led to a non-consensual deletion, I'm going to try a more elegant solution. Take a look now. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 02:01, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I see two problems with the first sentence:

1. It makes it look as if this is a direct quotation of Michael Morell, but it's actually a quote of Michael Hayden's paraphrase of Morell's article. Morell's statement is a little bit different.
2. Michael Morell doesn't actually use the phrase "useful idiot."

I don't think Morell's statement is necessary to give context to Hayden's statement. Hayden is the one who called Trump a "useful idiot," not Morell. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Morell's statement is actually the definition of the term "useful idiot", so it's certainly on-topic for this article. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 02:21, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

You made some good points, so I have used the exact quote from the original source. The full quote is no longer on the page. Can we close this thread? -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 02:30, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, one could argue that calling someone an "unwitting agent" is similar to calling them a "useful idiot," but this section of the article is about "Use of the term" - the term, of course, being "useful idiot." It's a stretch to include Morell's statement here, given that it relies on us reading something into it that he doesn't explicitly say. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:37, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

According to sources (cited above and others), both well-known expressions mean exactly the same. Therefore, I made unwitting agent a redirect to this page. There are two options: (a) to develop page unwitting agent if anyone thinks this is something different, and (b) to reflect usage of term "unwitting agent" on this page per RS. I have no strong opinion, but (b) seem to be more appropriate (assuming that the page is not be about the wording/expression, but about the subject). Well, another similar expression is probably the Patsy. My very best wishes (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Could you link the sources that say they have exactly the same meaning here? I looked through the above discussion, but it wasn't obvious to me which sources you're referencing.

There are lots of phrases with similar meanings to "useful idiot." The word "patsy" has a similar meaning, but it isn't as directly tied to the Cold War as the phrase "useful idiot" is. It looks like "unwitting agent" is another derogatory term with similar meaning. However, "useful idiot" is a specific phrase with a specific history, which this article is supposed to document (e.g., its apparent origin in the Cold War and its later attribution to Lenin). It shouldn't be lumped in with all the other phrases that have related meanings. If it is, then this article will no longer be about the term "useful idiot," but rather about the much more general concept of "dupes," or people accused of being "dupes" by their political detractors. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:26, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Let's not broaden it to include tempting 'obviously close enough' terms like that. Option (c): There aren't enough sources to justify an unwitting agent page, and nothing obligates us to give it a home here. -BeebLee (talk) 01:37, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Don't undo content against talk page consensus. You may offer dissent on talk but do not edit-war after all the back and forth on this content before you arrived here. 'This content' in this case being the Morell quote, there hasn't been that much back and forth about this latest addition yet, no clear consensus has emerged to keep it yet either, and the back-and-forth discussion here appears to have simply stopped 3 days ago.-BeebLee (talk) 02:00, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for coming to talk. The discussion ended simply because the editor who has been tendentiously trying to erase this content gave up and apparently was willing to let consensus prevail. SPECIFICO talk 02:21, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

If you're referring to Thucydides411, since you've referred to their contributions as tendentious elsewhere on this talk page, they were the latest one to contribute to the discussion, and those who disagreed with him did not respond. If anyone 'gave up' on establishing consensus, it wasn't Thucydides411. -BeebLee (talk) 02:25, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Michael Morell

There was a discussion about Morell's quote in the above section about Michael Hayden's quote. To keep the discussions separate, I'm opening up a section here. Morell's Op-Ed doesn't actually mention the phrase "useful idiot." It uses a different term, "unwitting agent." My very best wishes said above that the two terms mean exactly the same thing. I think that raises two questions:

1. Are the terms "useful idiot" and "unwitting agent" really synonymous? What are the sources that back this up?
2. If they really are synonyms, do uses of the term "unwitting agent" belong in this article?

I'm not convinced of question #1, and I'd like to see a reliable source that makes this equivalence. As for question #2, I'd answer "no." The term "useful idiot" has its own history as a political pejorative in the United States, and while other terms have similar meanings, I don't think they should be mixed into this article. The question of due weight also applies here. There are lots of uses of the term "useful idiot," and this article already has two uses specifically about Trump, even before the addition of the "unwitting agent" quote. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:43, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

1. No. Linguistically, they are not synonyms at all. "Unwitting" is not the same as "idiot", and "useful" is not the same as "agent". Semantically, they are similar. In political parlance, "useful idiot" has been used to refer to a naive enthusiast for a cause they don't understand. "Unwitting agent" — which has, as far as I know, no ideological baggage — means someone who unknowingly acts for someone else. There is no connotation of naive enthusiasm. On the contrary, the person has no knowledge of what they doing. This contrasts with the so-called "useful idiots", who were conscious supporters of the Soviet Union.

2. No. We cannot include every similar term: "cat's paw", "dupe", "patsy", "stooge", "running dog", "water boy" etc.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:58, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I guess you both are arguing that unwitting agent should be a separate page, and it should be independently developed. There are numerous sources about it. For example, Harry Hopkins was described as such [4]. OK. When it is developed, one might suggest merging it with this page. But speaking about Morell's comment, it belongs to this page because RS discuss it in connection with the "useful idiot". My very best wishes (talk) 21:27, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the phrase "unwitting agent" is notable enough to have its own page. I haven't thought enough about that particular issue to have an opinion. I'm saying that "unwitting agent" is not a synonym of "useful idiot," and quoting an article that uses the phrase "unwitting agent" does not help to illustrate use of the term "useful idiot." -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:40, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

You can make a redirect from unwitting agent to useful idiot if you really think there would be confusion in that regard. Unwitting agent is not a notable expression. Any combination of words may have a variety of uses and meanings, but "Useful idiot" is a notable concept. SPECIFICO talk 13:40, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Multiplying pages on the same subject is "content forking" and should be avoided. The page should be on a certain subject/concept. The meaning of both expressions is exactly the same, except that "unwitting agent" is more frequently used in intelligence context. It is perfectly appropriate to mention all different wordings used in the literature to describe the subject of the page, i.e. the "unwitting agent", the "dupe" (already mentioned on the page), and "patsy". Why? Because that is what RS on the subject of "useful idiots" do. My very best wishes (talk) 15:52, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

"Unwitting agent" does not mean the exact same thing as "useful idiot." The subject of this page is the phrase "useful idiot." This page does not cover every term that has the general meaning of "dupe" or "patsy." The Morell article does not even use the phrase "useful idiot," so it doesn't belong here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:14, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

"does not mean the exact same thing"? But what is the difference? (Un)fortunately, I do not have time right now, but will return to this page later. My very best wishes (talk) 02:29, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually it does mean exactly the same thing as an idiomatic expression. Time to give up this obstinate obstruction. Very ill-advised. Not helpful. Please help find additional article content and references rather than suppress valid content. SPECIFICO talk 02:35, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

As Jack Upland wrote above, "useful idiot" has the connotation of someone who enthusiastically supports a cause that they don't understand, and whose enthusiasm is cynically exploited by the leaders of the cause. The phrase "unwitting agent" does not necessarily refer to a naive enthusiast - it can refer to people who don't believe in the cause, but who nevertheless somehow advance it (perhaps without their own knowledge). In any case, as I wrote at the outset, there are two questions:

1. Are there sources substantiating the claim that "unwitting agent" is an exact synonym of "useful idiot"?
2. If it were to have the same meaning (which I don't think is the case), would that mean it should be covered on this page?

I haven't seen either of those two questions addressed above. The Morell quote doesn't use the phrase "useful idiot," and the idea that "unwitting agent" is exactly the same as "useful idiot" is dubious. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:23, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I am sorry, but according to OED definition (you insisted to include), "useful idiot" is someone "who is ... naive and susceptible to manipulation for propaganda or other purposes; (more widely) any person similarly manipulable for political purposes". It does not tell anything about "enthusiasm", "a cause", etc. My very best wishes (talk) 14:59, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Thuce, Jack is not our RS reference. EOM. Move on to article improvement now. SPECIFICO talk 15:17, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: The OED also says that a "useful idiot" is "sympathetic to communism" - not just that they're "naive" and "susceptible to manipulation." They're supposed to be a believer in the cause, not just someone who is unwittingly useful to someone else. The term "unwitting agent" is much broader. You're arguing that the two terms are exactly the same, which sounds like original research to me, and that the term "unwitting agent" should also be covered here. I've now asked twice for sources for this equivalence, but none have been offered in response. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:39, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Dezinformatsia

I couldn't actually verify that Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy uses the phrase "useful idiot." I don't have access to the full text at the moment, and Google Books searches for the term "idiot" and "idiots" in the book come up dry: [5] [6]. Can anyone find an actual page number for this supposed use of the term, and perhaps quote the passage here? -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:45, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

The same goes for KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer's Handbook. In this case, the Amazon preview at least has the full index of terms, and "polezniy idiot" does not seem to be included (nor is "polezniy durak"). -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:54, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I also do not have this book (the content was included by Softlavender), but this reference and a couple of others I checked tells it was in fact used by the Soviet KGB in such context. My very best wishes (talk) 15:40, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Based on this, I am undoing the recent revert and pinging @Softlavender: SPECIFICO talk 15:35, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Based on what? No citation has been given for Dezinformatsia or KGB Lexicon containing the phrase "useful idiot." -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:09, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Biografer: The reference you added here doesn't seem to actually validate the sentence,

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.

The Daily Beast article discusses a different book by Mitrokhin, called The Sword and the Shield, but not KGB Lexicon. The article also does not directly quote Mitrokhin as using the term "useful idiot" (the author of the Daily Beast article uses the term in describing Mitrokhin's book), so it's unclear whether he actually used the term in The Sword and the Shield, much less in KGB Lexicon. Basically, the Daily Beast reference doesn't support what the text of the Wikipedia page says. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:52, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

References

As long as the term is used, it doesn't matter which book it's from.--Biografer (talk) 06:07, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

It matters whether the reference actually supports the sentence it's supposed to be verifying. The source does not verify the sentence that comes before it. I'm not claiming that the Daily Beast article does not use the phrase "useful idiot." I'm saying that it doesn't verify the statement that precedes it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:32, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Then we should rewrite the whole sentence in accordance to the source.--Biografer (talk) 18:58, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

OK. So, I changed it to The Times, a better source (in Wikipedia's opinion) then Daily Beast.--Biografer (talk) 18:58, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@Biografer: The problem is that neither of the two articles, in the Daily Beast and The Times, actually verifies what the sentence in question says. The sentence says that the term "useful idiot" appears in two particular books. Neither of the articles you've given as references mention those books. They're editorials whose authors use the phrase "useful idiot." The sentence is not verified, and so should be removed. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:12, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I can remove it, but then @SPECIFICO: will come and revert it. Point?--Biografer (talk) 19:14, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

If the sentence can't be verified, and worse, it appears to be wrong in part (i.e., the term "useful idiot" isn't in the index of KGB Lexicon), then it should go. It's incumbent on anyone who wants it to remain to provide a reference that establishes that the information is correct. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:17, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

OK. I removed that info. Will see if it will be reverted or not.--Biografer (talk) 20:36, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with any particular editor - me, mvbw, or anyone else. It's valid article content and there is no consensus to remove it, so it's not appropriate for 2 editors to decide to remove it. I hope you'll reinstate it. We have not even heard back from Softlavender. NPOV editors have no rush to remove good informative content. These arguments against valid content in this article have exhausted any pretext of policy or reason. SPECIFICO talk 21:04, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: There is a reason. Maybe @Thucydides411: didn't explain it well to you, but if there is no reference, there is no need for this unverified information to be present on Wikipedia. And we have a policy for that, its called verifiability. As for Soflavender, why such concern? Did she proposed this discussion? I don't see her name in the current thread. Besides, she wasn't editing here as of March 2 of this year, and it is obvious she wont respond for a whole month if not more. Who knows with what stuff she is currently busy.--Biografer (talk) 01:55, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

It was stated that Softlavender was the one who originally placed this in the article. Anyway a CN tag would have been perfectly fine given the circumstances and the tenor of the talk page discussion. SPECIFICO talk 02:09, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

That's the thing @SPECIFICO:, CN is good, but we still can't verify if its true or not. Maybe user Softlavender was under impression that she will be able to find a verifiable reference? I can try and search Yandex for the Russian language one, but I don't think I will be able to find much.--Biografer (talk) 02:42, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@Biografer: The latest source, [7], also does not verify the information in the sentence. It doesn't even mention the phrase "useful idiot." If there's no source to verify this information, it's best to just remove the sentence. It's always possible that someone will find a source that verifies this information later, but as of now, after more than a week of this thread being open, nobody has done so. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:17, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, here is my idea, I will remove the whole sentence, and you can fiddle with user @SPECIFICO: as much as you like! Hate being a pawn! :(--Biografer (talk) 04:21, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@Biografer: You don't have to do what either of us say! You can act as you think correct. I'm just saying what I think we should do with the article - not trying to give commands. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:27, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I understand, but when one editor suggests one thing, the other suggests another (and then adding that Softlavender put in that CN (which we for some odd reason) we need to respect). My opinion is this: If its not verifiable; remove the sentence. If Softlavender will start creating a fuss over it, tell her sorry, the discussion is closed.--Biografer (talk) 04:32, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree, it's correct to remove the sentence for now. If Softlavender does provide a valid source, then that will change things, but so far, the material is simply unverified, and therefore shouldn't be in the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:37, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I am restoring the content with various references that verify it, so "things have changed". Please move on. There is now no conceivable pretext for removing this RS information from our article. Remember, Wikipedia is not a dictionary and this article is about the concept and its application, not solely the two words. Thank you. SPECIFICO talk 23:50, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

The references you've added do not seem to support the content. Here's the new content, added in this diff:

In their 1979 book, Dezinformatsia: The Strategy of Soviet Disinformation, by Richard H. Shultz, professor of international politics at Tufts University, and Roy Godson, professor emeritus of government at Georgetown University, the authors detail the tactics of information warfare used by the KGB during the Soviet era as part of their active measures. The Soviets were able to bring agents of influence into their fold and do their bidding, through social influence as unwitting agents sometimes termed "useful idiots". She criticized the rigor of the book's research methodology.

I've been able to access sources and . Correct me if I'm wrong, but neither of them actually mentions the phrase "useful idiot." They don't mention the phrase "unwitting agent" either, as far as I can see (not that "unwitting agent" is a synonym - it isn't). If they do, please cite the passage where they do so here on the talk page. The connection between "useful idiot" and the book Dezinformatsia seems to be original research. The new references don't actually verify the supposed connection, and the material is still unverified. On a side note, why is the title of the book bolded? -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:23, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

References

I've already addressed your dictionary objection. This is amply sourced here to notable authorities cited in secondary RS references. This is resolved. SPECIFICO talk 01:49, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The sources you cited don't support the text you added. I pointed this out above, and asked you to quote the passages from the references that actually support the text. Instead of doing that, you're telling me the matter is resolved. If the information cannot be verified, then the matter is closed, but in the opposite sense as what you're saying - it fails verification and should be removed. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:11, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

You'll need to actually read the three cited secondary sources, which verify the content. You may not continue to edit war this article nor to deny the cited sources. SPECIFICO talk 02:35, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

As I wrote above, I've read the two cited sources that I have access to. They do not verify the content, as far as I can see. That's why I've asked you to quote from them, to show how they verify the content. If they do verify the content, as you say, it should be easy - but you've chosen not to do so. Given that the sources do not appear to verify the content, and given that you're unwilling to quote from them to show that they say what you're claiming, I'm removing the content you added. It fails verification. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:19, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The source most def. talks about "unwitting collaborators" and "unwitting individuals" being used as agents. "Unwitting agents" is a perfectly fine paraphrase of the source.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:51, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: Can you quote the actual passage in the sources that links the book Dezinformatsia to the concept/phrase "useful idiot"? I've asked above for an actual quotation from the source that supports the content being added in here, to no avail.

As it is, the connection to "useful idiot" seems like original research. Unless the secondary literature itself makes this connection ("unwitting collaborators" -> "unwitting agents" -> "useful idiots"), it's not verifiable by Wikipedia's standards. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:54, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Not sure about the book as I can only do partial searches in it. Since Softlavender added it, we can do him the courtesy of waiting for clarification. However, Godson, one of the authors of the book discusses the the phenomenon in terms of "useful idiots" here: " While some of these "agents of influence" are Russian nationals, others aren't, he says. But they're "hired because they will be influential people in society. In addition to these experts trained for a career in the practice, Godson says, there is another category of agents: the "useful idiots," who "don't know very much but who can be useful in terms of their influence."" Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:17, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I hate to join an edit war here, but according to Dezinformatsia (book), the book was published in 1984, not 1979. If the content is disputed and easily verifiable facts are wrong, I don't see how it can be included until discussion is complete. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:00, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The 1979 thing appears to be a simple mistake - it is indeed 1984. But that's not really under dispute here and not a reason to remove the whole para.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:11, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

OK. Most of the section doesn't appear to be controversial, though I do feel we shouldn't include "useful idiot" in quotes unless it appears in the book. According to Worldcat, the book is fairly commonly available in university libraries; perhaps somebody can check the book directly rather than bickering about other sources. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:15, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree so I took the "useful idiot" part for now. And I can try to get it from the library ... except its Spring Break here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:18, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm also still waiting for anyone to quote from the sources, showing how they connect the book Dezinformatsia to the idea of "useful idiots." I looked through the sources I have access again, and I didn't even come across the phrase "unwitting collaborators" or "unwitting individuals," which Marek says above are in the sources. Maybe I missed something, and someone can quote the relevant passage here. This is all even assuming that "unwitting agents" is a synonym for "useful idiots," which is a dubious assumption to begin with.

If this material can be verified, it can be added back in. I just don't understand the drive to keep it in, absent verification. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:21, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

"The agent of influence proper is subject to the direct control of an officer of the foreign regime, and advances the interests of a foreign power in response to specific orders and direction. (...) exploitation of an unwitting but manipulated individual. Between the unwitting agent and the unwilling collaborator, is the trusted contact, a person who consciously advances the objectives of a foreign power" pg. 38

Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:37, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Page 38 of what? -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:39, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The book being discussed.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:40, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I see - not in the sources being used for reference. This looks like original research to me: "unwitting collaborator" is being equated (by Wikipedia editors, not by the secondary sources) with "useful idiot," and therefore a book that discusses "unwitting collaborators" gets a paragraph in the article about "useful idiots."

By the way, Google Books returns zero results in the book Dezinformatsia for "idiot" or "fool." -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:45, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

That's partly why I removed the part about "useful idiots" from the sentence. Broadly speaking though it fits. Let's see if Softlavender can shed some light on the topic. As to the search, that doesn't necessarily mean anything - only parts of the book get searched. In fact if you do a search for a sub-phrase of a sentence that you know is in the book it might not pop up. For example, when I search for "trusted contact" I get no hits either, even though we know the phrase is in the book. (Google book search just generally sucks).Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:52, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Any of us should be embarrassed to claim that a google search is the standard of our research or verification here. Get a copy of the book and read it if you are convinced there's some basis to purge the article. SPECIFICO talk 15:28, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

As Marek notes, due to American Spring Break, it's unlikely anybody can do so until Monday. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:03, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Publication date - There are two editions of this book, the 1979 and 1984 printings, the latter with a slightly different title. It's the same book and both verify the content that is being edit-warred. 100% excellent verified content for our readers on the timely subject of Russian active measures. SPECIFICO talk 15:16, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Is there an ISBN or any other reference for the 1979 version? I've seen sources note that there are multiple printings, but all of them suggest that the 1984 version was the first one. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:01, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

From the Beginning

What's the evidence that the book Dezinformatsia has anything to do with the phrase "useful idiot"? There's no evidence (so far) that the term appears in the book, and the term does not appear in any of the reviews of the book that have been referenced in this discussion. It has been argued above that "unwitting collaborator" or "unwitting agent" mean the same thing as "useful idiot," and that the book (which uses these terms at least once) should therefore be discussed in this Wiki article. This argument is highly questionable (I don't think "useful idiot" and "unwitting agent" are synonyms) and is clearly original research. As far as I can see, no strong argument has been made for inclusion of this material. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

The general sense I get from the article and its sources is that, while this and other related terms were used during the Soviet era, the specific widely-accepted term and definition dates to the 1990s or 2000s. Including a description of how a notable book describes the term during the Soviet era is clearly relevant. As I note above, for such a matter of fact, checking the book itself should be done to determine the accurate content, and that is not a WP:OR violation. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:01, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Unless the book discusses the concept of "useful idiots," or the tertiary sources discussing the book connect the book to the concept of "useful idiots," the inclusion of the book here is textbook original research.

Including a description of how a notable book describes the term during the Soviet era is clearly relevant.

The problem is that the book does not describe the term "useful idiot," and none of the book reviews referenced in this discussion do either. The only people connecting the book to the idea of "useful idiots" are Wikipedia editors in the above discussion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:17, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Unless the book discusses the concept of "useful idiots" - my understanding is that it does discuss the concept, though I don't have any idea whether it uses the term "useful idiot". As I note above, hopefully this will be clarified soon by checking the book directly; the library I would use is closed this week. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:24, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

my understanding is that it does discuss the concept: Based on what? It apparently discusses a different concept - that of "unwitting agents." Claiming that the two concepts are the same (incorrectly, I think) would be original research. None of the sources we've encountered so far connect the book Dezinformatsia with the concept of "useful idiots." -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:35, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I wish I could have picked up that book, but unfortunately the library that is near me is closed till July 2018. :( I still can pick up stuff, I just don't think I will be able to return it (if a book is thick enough) it wont fit in into the outside drop box. :(--Biografer (talk) 21:09, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

So the unverified material is remaining in the article pending verification? Why not just remove it, and if someone can actually verify that it's relevant to "useful idiot," then it can be added back in? -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:41, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Distortion fixed

I fixed this by quoting Safire directly. In his article he suggested to tell that "the quote was attributed to Lenin", not the opposite. My edit was not revert. There are other things to be fixed, and I can fix them if Thucydides411 stops immediately reverting my edits on the page. My very best wishes (talk) 22:44, 16 March 2018 (UTC) All in favor of this proposal?

• Support Mvbw proposal. SPECIFICO talk 22:53, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

My very best wishes claims that this is an "outright distortion" of Safire's article on the term "useful idiot":

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.
— [8]

Here's what Safire writes:

In the meantime, outspoken anti-Communists have permission to use useful idiots of the West as well as the West will sell us the rope with which to hang them, but must not precede either with "As Lenin said ..." until more precincts are heard from. Instead, try "As Lenin was reported to have said ..." or "In a phrase attributed to Lenin ...."
— William Safire, "On Language"

Safire is very clear: you can't claim that Lenin said the phrase "useful idiots," because there's no evidence for the claim. You can say that other people have attributed it to him, but you can't yourself claim that he said it - at least "until more precincts are heard from" (meaning until more evidence comes to light). The text that MVBW is saying is an "outright distortion" is actually an accurate paraphrase of what Safire wrote.

Here's what MVBW substituted in instead:

In a 1987 article for The New York Times, American journalist William Safire noted that a senior reference librarian at the Library of Congress had been unable to find the phrase in Lenin's works, and concluded that instead of telling As Lenin said... one must try "As Lenin was reported to have said ... or In a phrase attributed to Lenin...".
— [9]

This version obscures one of Safire's key points: that he was unable to find any evidence for Lenin ever having used the phrase.

In the same edit, MVBW also removed the statement in the OED about usage in the Soviet Union. It was decided in a previous RfC that the OED's statement about usage in the USSR should be cited.

I reverted MVBW's edit, but SPECIFICO reverted back, accusing me of "edit warring" and claiming that MVBW's new text, added just hours ago, now suddenly represents the "consensus." Claiming consensus just hours after an edit is jumping the gun a bit, isn't it? This claim of consensus is all the more amazing when one considers that part of MVBW's edit explicitly goes against the result of a previous RfC. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:44, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

References

• In the segment above Safire tells very clearly that one should say: "In a phrase attributed to Lenin ...." rather than "As Lenin said ...". That is what I included. He did not tell "the phrase should not be attributed to Lenin". He also did not tell: "the phrase was not used in the Soviet Union". Hence your version was incorrect. My very best wishes (talk) 01:11, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: You're misunderstanding Safire's point. He writes that if one uses the phrase "useful idiots," one "must not precede [it] with 'As Lenin said ...'" That's exactly equivalent to saying, "One must not attribute the phrase to Lenin." He says that you can say that other people have attributed it to Lenin, but you cannot do so yourself, because he was unable to find any evidence for Lenin having said it. That's the difference between saying, "As Lenin said ..." and "In a phrase attributed to Lenin." In the former, one attributes the phrase to Lenin. In the latter, one notes that other people have attributed the phrase to Lenin, but does not do so oneself. This is a very important distinction, and it's the conclusion of Safire's piece on the phrase "useful idiot," so we shouldn't get it wrong. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:43, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

No, I simply quoted the source. But you are making your own interpretation. My very best wishes (talk) 02:58, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I accurately paraphrased the source. That's not WP:OR, that's simply good writing. Here on the talk page, you're claiming that Safire said something that is 100% the opposite of what he said. He says very clearly in his article that one cannot attribute the phrase to Lenin until new evidence comes to light. Really, if we have to argue about such basic issues as what a Safire's clearly-written paragraph means, I fear we won't be able to make any progress whatsoever. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:04, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

• No, you did not. He said: In the meantime, outspoken anti-Communists have permission to use useful idiots of the West as well as the West will sell us the rope with which to hang them, but must not precede either with "As Lenin said ..." until more precincts are heard from. Instead, try "As Lenin was reported to have said ..." or "In a phrase attributed to Lenin ....". That is direct quotation. He tells that telling "In a phrase attributed to Lenin ...." is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. My very best wishes (talk) 03:12, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't know how to make this clearer: you're simply misunderstanding Safire's point. He says explicitly that you can't say, "As Lenin said ..." That's what it means to attribute something to someone. That's what he says you must not do: attributing the phrase to Lenin. When one says, "As Lenin was reported to have said ...," one is not oneself making any attribution. One is just saying that other people have made the attribution. There's a reason why Safire says you must not say one thing, but can say another thing - they have very different meanings. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:24, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

• Thuc, it's unseemly to misrepresent events in a poll like this one. Please allow other editors to appear here. There's little doubt about your approach. Let others speak. SPECIFICO talk 01:27, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

What have I misrepresented? Please be specific. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:37, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Don't sealion us. It's even worse if you don't know what you are doing. It's been explained to you at least half a dozen times and we're under no obligation to repeat forever. SPECIFICO talk 03:16, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I really have no idea what you think I've misrepresented. Making vague accusations falls under WP:ASPERSIONS. You are indeed under no obligation to make these aspersions, and I urge you to remain on the topic. I explained in detail why I think MVBW's interpretation of Safire's article is wrong, and your response was to attack me. Please respond to the point, rather than attacking the person who makes it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:20, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Huge Amount of Original Research Recently Added

A huge amount of original research has recently been added to the article: [10].

The first paragraph takes one author who mentions "useful idiot" and the "rope" quote (which is about a completely different subject - capitalists doing business with Soviet Russia because they're blinded by profits, not naive sympathizers not understanding the true goals of communism), and builds that into an entire paragraph, complete with the claim that the "rope" quote is "often" discussed in connection with the phrase "useful idiot." This is already original research and massively undue, but the next paragraph outdoes the first.

The second paragraph goes on to give the "rope" quote in full, then say that it comes from Lenin's handwritten notes, citing Safire - even though Safire explicitly says in his article that he's skeptical of the claim that this quote comes from Lenin's notes. As if that's not enough, this paragraph then goes on to give another Lenin quote (about lying) - again completely unrelated to "useful idiot" - in full. It then cites a source, Words of Others, which does not discuss "useful idiot."

This newly added material is not just undue original research; even worse, it's a jumbled mess. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:15, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

• No, even the reference by Safire you use (cited below) discusses both "dumb and blind" and the "rope" quotations as directly connected to the "useful idiot" quotation.. Therefore mentioning them both on the page is appropriate and not WP:OR. My very best wishes (talk) 04:34, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Nope, Safire calls the "rope" quote a "quote on another subject":

But as one who has tied himself in knots looking for Lenin's supposed quote on another subject - "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them," or words to that effect - I wondered when and where Lenin said it. (emphasis added)
— Safire, On Language

Safire's just brings up the "rope" quote because it's another supposed Leninism whose origin he can't track down. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:53, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

No, in the article by Safire (and other publications, such as the book about quotations), the expression "useful idiot" was discussed in connection with two other related quotations attributed to Lenin, which are also about Western "idiots" being manipulated by the Soviet communists. We simply tell what RS on the subject tell.My very best wishes (talk) 15:41, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I just quoted above what Safire says about the "rope" quote. He says that it's about a different subject - it's right there in the quote above. He discusses it in the same article because it's a second supposed Leninism whose origin he can't track down.

"and other publications, such as the book about quotations": Which book about quotations are you talking about? I don't think Words of Others discusses the phrase "useful idiot." The whole paragraph you wrote based on the book Words of Others is classic synthesis, making connections between different ideas that the sources themselves do not make.

Just on a factual matter, William Safire is right that the "rope" quote is about a different subject than the phrase "useful idiots":

1. The "rope" quote is about capitalists being done in by their own greed (doing business with Soviet Russia to make a profit, and thereby making Soviet Russia, their enemy, strong).
2. A "useful idiot" is supposed to be a naive sympathizer with communism, not a greedy-but-shortsighted capitalist.

The two quotes are about very different subjects, just as William Safire says. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:50, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Thuc, if you're trying to defend a ridiculous misstatement, it doesn't help to double down with something even more ridiculous when you're on the ropes.➰ ➰ SPECIFICO talk 15:46, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

You'll have to be more specific. I don't know what the first misstatement is supposed to be, nor what's supposed to be ridiculous about what I wrote above. I've asked you before to refrain from these vague personal attacks on me, and to address the points I'm raising. You haven't done so in this discussion, nor in the discussion directly above about Safire. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:39, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

You keep complaining you can't understand the discussion here even when multiple editors have patiently cited your errors and omissions. If you can't follow what's being discussed, that is not for lack of good faith efforts to explain things to you. SPECIFICO talk 18:02, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I'm complaining that you've repeatedly make vague accusations, and when I ask you to specify them, you respond like the above, with more vague accusations. Please stop with the accusations, and respond to the points I'm raising for a change. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:06, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry that duck don't quack, as you've been shown half a dozen or more times over the past year. SPECIFICO talk 18:13, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

For reference, I tried to hat this nonsense thread that SPECIFICO began, but they've reverted me. Apparently, all you dear editors must see their vague attacks on me, because they're very important to article improvement. /s I urge anyone who sees this to re-hat this sub-thread. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:09, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Back on subject

What's the basis for claiming consensus, as was done here? There is no consensus for this mass of original research. Instead of edit-warring this material in, gain consensus on the talk page first. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:24, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

• This content (about the "rope" and the "blind" quotations) was on the page unchallenged for a couple of weeks until you came and unilaterally removed it without any discussion [11]. There was actually a discussion at this time, but about something different. So, yes, I agree with S.: this is your unilateral removal against consensus. My very best wishes (talk) 04:03, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

The content on the "rope" and "blind" quotations was contested above by Jack Upland in the Talk:Useful idiot#Reworking of article section. In the earlier RfC on the OED (Talk:Useful idiot#Request for Comment on Oxford English Dictionary), you advanced the same interpretation of the book Words of Others that you've now written into the article, and were challenged by Darouet on it. As was pointed out earlier on this talk page, the book Words of Others does not connect the phrase "useful idiots" to the "rope" or "blind" quotations - that connection is your own personal synthesis.

The edit that you and SPECIFICO are claiming to be consensus also removes the sentence from the OED about the origin of the phrase. That is a clear violation of consensus, as established through an RfC.

You and SPECIFICO have been edit-warring to enforce a massive change of the article, which does not have consensus, which contains a huge amount of your own synthesis about other supposed quotations by Lenin, which misrepresents Safire's article severely (based on a very simple misunderstanding of his conclusion), and which removes consensus text from the OED. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:36, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

yer pissin' in the wind with that one, buddy. SPECIFICO talk 21:41, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Posts like the one above are purely disruptive. I take it from the edit summary on your revert that you mean my views above have been rejected. They've been rejected by precisely two editors, yourself and My very best wishes, but it looks to me like you guys are in the minority here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

More about original research

This paragraph, which was recently inserted into the article, severely misrepresents what the source actually says:

According to book The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture[8], even if the origin of these quotations might not be reliably established, they are not misquotations because these phrases belong to the public image of Lenin, define exactly his ideas, and use wording that would be actually used by Lenin and his comrades, such as the "ropes", "idiots" or "deaf, dumb and blind".

Here are the problems with this paragraph:

1. The source does not mention the phrase "useful idiot" in this context. The connection to "useful idiot" is pure original research.
2. The source does not say that these quotations "define exactly [Lenin's] ideas," and it does not say that he and his comrades would have used this wording. Worst of all, the source is only discussing the "rope" and "deaf, dumb and blind" quotes here, but My very best wishes inserted the phrase "idiots" in as well. This is supposed to be a paraphrase of the source, but a key term has been inserted into the paraphrase that the source does not include.

Here's a link to the relevant passage in the source, Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture.

The discussion of the "rope" and "deaf, dumb and blind" quotes takes up about half of the "Origin of the term" section, even though the entire discussion is based on a source that does not connect these quotes to the expression "useful idiot." The connection is original research, and this original research now takes up a very sizable chunk of our entire article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:18, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

RfC on Oxford English Dictionary

I note that the RfC on including the quote from the OED has been violated yet again. I will take this further.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

As noted below, an ANI thread has been started on this issue. I apologise to everyone that I did not notify them on their talk pages.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:33, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

I'd earlier suggested dispute resolution and even opened up a page for that. Is anyone interested in heading down that road? -Darouet (talk) 19:17, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's a very good idea. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, it didn't work last time, and I don't think it would work now. There are some editors who want to force their opinion on the page — as shown by the time of this section — and they aren't willing to compromise.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:19, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Better to try than not. I'd far prefer going through the sources one-by-one in a structured format than the current situation, in which we have scattered arguments over the sources, and the second one thinks a question has been settled, everything is thrown back up into the air (e.g., the OED's findings on Soviet non-usage have been removed, despite the RfC, suddenly all the previous original research about "the rope" is back in the article, and now one of the most in-depth sources, William Safire's article, is being put on the chopping block by two editors). -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:16, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

You should change your ID to Aristophanes. Just make your mediation request and spare us all the drama show. Otherwise, as Homer used to say (but never wrote down) st*u. 😎 SPECIFICO talk 19:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

For once, why don't you say, "Yes, I'd be willing to go to dispute resolution"? It's a completely voluntary process, so there's no use going there if your attitude is to never say you're willing, and to insult me. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:07, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: What is up with that attitude? I think Thucydides411 is being very reasonable and trying to work with you. Your behavior is bordering on abusive. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:32, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually not. You see, anyone can put in a request for Dispute Resolution and then there's a process for signing on the other contributors and proceeding from there. Anyone who actually wishes to pursue DR simply enters the request after which bots and volunteer assistants and mediators help get the parties together and see what can be done. Clucking over and over about how it's pointless to request DR because, well, "who can know whether anyone will participate" is a ridiculous waste of time. WP provides such an easy path for this routine mode of discussion. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but complaining about how it's too much trouble to start the process is not going to work. We do know that much. But this is not the first time such a thread has played out. I think I was a bit more patient the first time or the second time maybe even. SPECIFICO talk 23:20, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure "which side" I'm on, but I'll participate either at DRN or MEDCOM. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:08, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

It is a good idea to gauge opinions before embarking on dispute resolution. Otherwise, it is a waste of effort for all the people who participate in good faith, if key people refuse to co-operate. It's clear from above that SPECIFICO is hostile to the idea. And if editors are not willing to abide by an RfC, they are unlikely to co-operate with dispute resolution.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:59, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Jack, only yesterday I reminded folks (for at least the third time) that the process itself starts by checking editors' willingness to cooperate as the first simple.painless.easy.step. of DR. Apparently you recently jumped into an ANI thread without first reading the procedures about notification. Now it looks like you're not bothering to learn how DR works before making aspersions about other editors and stating, solely from your own imagination, what would happen if you took the simple step of starting an orderly DR process.

Jack, you have been on WP for a long time. I don't think you're communicating as clearly as might be expected. Let me ask you a question: What was the edit on this article around March 20 that led you to launch the ANI and say that the edit warring had resumed? Could you post that diff? Thanks. Let's take this one step at a time. SPECIFICO talk 13:05, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

@Jack Upland: -- waiting for a reply here about the diff, so I can understand what the issues are at ANI. SPECIFICO talk 19:32, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I was just going to reply. I don't think there's any point arguing about dispute resolution, or discussing the ANI issue here. My decision to launch the ANI thread was based on what happened in the month since the RfC. It was not based on a single edit. I provided several examples at the ANI.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:56, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Jack, you said that there was an edit around March 20 that convinced you to go to ANI. I'm trying to understand what the ANI thread is about -- especially since you've made disparaging remarks about me there. I am just asking what was the tipping point that convinced you an edit war was heating up? Of course your current opinion may have changed (or not, I don't care) I'm just asking what was the diff that prompted you to go to ANI and that you refer to at ANI. Otherwise it's hard to sort all this out. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 22:17, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

About 'budala' and the above discussion

It might be useful to point out that 'budala' means a fool/idiot (albeit perhaps with a special emphasis on credulousness), not just 'an innocent', as a random Serbian-English dictionary (say, this one: http://www.recnik.com/logindict.cgi) will show; not that such vague attributions of that expression to Communists in general by their opponents seem particularly credible. As for the discussion about the attribution to Lenin personally, it is typical of the times we live in that the pro-attribution side, in spite of lacking any meaningful arguments whatsoever and being obviously and totally in the wrong both evidence-wise and w.r.t. Wikipedia's rules, feels that it can afford to act in such an utterly brazen-faced manner and to go on struggling tooth and nail for weeks on end. The toleration of this sort of behaviour is a fatal flaw of the project; it means that the editor that prevails will not be primarily the one who is right either factually or procedurally, but above all the one who had more time on his hands - thus increasing the presence of untrue and misleading content, as well as turning participation in the project into an unaffordable and utterly frustrating pastime for most people with normal employment and leisure.--94.155.68.202 (talk) 22:40, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the note on "budala." This is a bit of an awkward issue, because even though it seems that Bogdan Raditsa might not have given the best translation of the term "korsine budala," we don't have any secondary sources that directly dispute his translation. For us to look up the term in the dictionary and then insert a sentence saying that Radista's translation was wrong would be synthesis. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Achtung!

Unbeknownst to most participants here, there's been an ANI thread about this article here [12] for a day or more. How could the consensus content be reverted while both talk page and ANI threads were in progress (and why did only some editors somehow learn about it) Strange times indeed. SPECIFICO talk 00:13, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

The "consensus" content that was reverted was not consensus content at all. The "consensus" you're referencing went directly against the result of an RfC on the Oxford English Dictionary, and it included the recent addition of a large amount of original research. As for the ANI thread, you were pinged, as were a number of other people involved here. It's a good thing to have the notice of the ANI discussion here as well, so thanks for adding it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:20, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

My apologies for not notifying people on their talk pages. Unfortunately, SPECIFICO wasn't pinged, apparently because I initially misspelled the name. I foreshadowed my intentions above, but neglected to update the post saying that the ANI thread had started. Once again, I apologise.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:43, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure why the thread on ANI was started, but here was my reply. My very best wishes (talk) 23:51, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Screw Saffire

The 30+ year old op-ed from NYTimes token Nixonite Saffire is not a scholarly article, not particularly well-researched, and a LOT more trouble than it's worth. Let's just get it out of the article and forget all the irreconcilable issues that arise from its glib ob-ed punditry. SPECIFICO talk 13:25, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. This is a typical opinion piece to condemn "anticommunists" that should not be used anywhere. That's why I checked for much better sources, such as The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture by Gary Saul Morson, Yale University Press. Unfortunately, that reference was repeatedly removed by Thucydides411, for example in in this edit. My very best wishes (talk) 15:22, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with Safire's article. It's one of the few sources we have that's actually focused on the origin of the expression "useful idiot." The source itself hasn't caused any "trouble" - the only "trouble" I see with the source in the above discussion is that My very best wishes is insisting on a misinterpretation of the concluding paragraph of Safire's discussion of "useful idiot" (see the discussion in these diffs [13], or above in Talk:Useful idiot#Distortion fixed).

I removed the section sourced to Words of Others because the section is synthesis. The cited passage from Words of Others does not mention the phrase "useful idiot." It's discussing two entirely different supposed Leninisms. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:30, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Please have a look at Graham's Triangle of dispute resolution. There's simply no merit to your repeated assertions that your view is correct. Quite the opposite -- it suggests that you have no substantive basis for your POV. Ditto for your badmouthing Mvbw. SPECIFICO talk 00:19, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Look at the above discussions: "Soviet source using 'Useful Idiot'?", "OED contradicting itself?", "Distortion fixed" and "Huge Amount of Original Research Recently Added". I've consistently cited sources, quoted from them to explain my reasoning, and responded to the central arguments being made by others.

Note that in the above discussion about Safire, you never explained why you think MVBW's interpretation was correct. I quoted from the source, and explained exactly how the claim that it was being distorted was wrong. That's called "refuting the central point," and it's at the top of Graham's hierarchy. In contrast, your only contributions to that discussion were to say, "Support Mvbw proposal" and to make a vague accusation that I was misrepresenting something (what, precisely, that something was, you wouldn't say). Those contributions to the discussion would be equivalent to "contradiction" (or here, its cousin, "agreement") and "ad hominem," both of which rank pretty low on Graham's hierarchy.

Now, you're emphasizing that Safire's article is 30 years old and that he worked for Nixon (again, "ad hominem," near the bottom of Graham's hierarchy), neither of which have the slightest relevance to evaluating his article on the etymology of "useful idiot."

I haven't "badmouthed" MVBW in the slightest, and I bear no ill will towards them whatsoever - I've simply said that they're insisting on a misinterpretation of Safire's concluding paragraph. If editors expressing disagreement equals "badmouthing," we might as well shut down talk pages altogether. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:21, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Lord knows, I'm quite sure none of us "bears any ill will" toward anyone on WP. But I digress. The Safire bit is UNDUE. For example, he has nowhere near the credibility of Spruille Braden. Safire was a glib easy read twice a week for the Times. Not a researcher, etymologist, or the like. SPECIFICO talk 01:46, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

There's no indication whatsoever that Spruille Braden ever did any research into the etymology of the expression "useful idiot." All we know is that he once gave a speech in which he used the phrase "useful idiot," and he didn't even misattribute the phrase to the "right" person - he misattributed it to Stalin, whereas the usual misattribution is to Lenin. He probably just mixed the two up. He was a US diplomat stationed in Latin America, not an expert on etymology, and one passing use of the phrase in a speech he once gave doesn't make him into an expert source on this particular subject.

On the other hand, Safire's article is one of the only ones we have on the etymology of the expression "useful idiot," and it's cited in a number of other sources, including They Never Said It and Yale Book of Quotations. Even arch conservatives cite Safire's article: it's "one of the better summaries," according to Paul Kengor in Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century. Safire's article is therefore very much DUE. It's one of the best sources we have, and throwing it out would be a real shame. We'd have almost nothing to go on for the etymology. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:14, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree. Safire's article is pivotal, and is cited by other sources. It would be good to get more sources on the etymology, but this is what we've got.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:09, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't think a catchy Op-Ed opinion piece can be "pivotal" for an encyclopedia. Imagine what our articles would look like if that were the case. SPECIFICO talk 16:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

You can call it what you want, but William Safire's article on the expression "useful idiot" is based on real research, which he documents in the article. It's the most in-depth research into the phrase that we've been able to find (other than, perhaps, the OED, which gives valuable information about early usage in English, and which gives its conclusion about earlier non-usage in the Soviet Union). Yet somehow, these are the two sources that you've been arguing most strongly to exclude from this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

• This is a biased "advocacy source"/an opinion piece, as obvious from the first phrase: REFERRING WITH derision to what he called so-called notables who were convened as props for Gorbachev's speech, Zbigniew Brzezinski used a stinging phrase that has become a term of art among hard-line historians and former national security advisers: useful idiots of the West., and so on. It can be mentioned somewhere as a pure opinion with no significant weight, but relying heavily on such sources is against our policies, namely WP:RS and WP:NPOV. My very best wishes (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually it looks like Safire is doing what we should be doing: conducting an analysis of sources and their biases. From what you write above you would appear to indicate that "Zbigniew Brzezinski... hard-line historians and former national security advisers" are the preferred and neutral sources, while journalists, authors, librarians and academics who've identified a misquotation are not. Safire is not only a respected journalist and repeatedly cited for successfully discovering this rather egregious misquotation, he's also doing what you are not: rigorously investigating the origin of this term. -Darouet (talk) 16:24, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Saffire was a rehabilitated Nixon hack, sorry to say. He managed to bootstrap himself into a token right-wing presence on the Times for the appearance of "balance" but they didn't have him get near politics or social issues -- just pseudo-intellectual literary chat. SPECIFICO talk 16:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

• This is just a 2-page opinion piece by a politically-motivated journalist who is not an expert on the subject. A historian or political scientist would be an expert. The opinion piece has nothing to do with any scientific research. Did he even study himself any historical archives or records on the subject? That is what historians do. No. Did he even make a review of literature on the subject? No. It does not include any references. A "source" like that would be outright rejected per WP:MEDRS. My very best wishes (talk) 18:22, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Why the constant ad hominem directed at William Safire? It's not at all relevant that he worked for Nixon. He did real research into the origin of the expression "useful idiot." He contacted professional researchers, he asked a senior reference librarian at the Library of Congress who had done research into the issue, he followed up on leads these researchers pointed him towards. In other words, he did more research into the etymology of this phrase than just about anyone else we cite in this article. In contrast, you're saying that we should cite an American diplomat and commercial lobbyist, Spruille Braden (whom it would be a lot easier to ad hominem attack than Safire), as an expert on the etymology of this phrase, despite the complete lack of evidence that he ever did one shred of research into the phrase, and the despite the very real possibility that when he attributed the phrase to Stalin (in passing), he was simply mixing up Stalin and Lenin. Why are you arguing for rejecting the most detailed etymological investigation we have - which is cited in many other sources - and instead using a passing reference to Stalin in a speech made by someone who did no research on the subject? -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

AFAIK you are the only one saying anything about ad homos here, so? Better to spend our time finding new references and resources. We all agree this is obviously a very timely topic wrt American Politics. SPECIFICO talk 18:21, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

This comment is incomprehensible. -Darouet (talk) 19:16, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Don't discuss what you don't understand. Discuss what you do understand. Stay constructive. SPECIFICO talk 19:18, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I didn't understand your comment either. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

If I had a nickel for every time you've complained that you don't understand ... SPECIFICO talk 19:55, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Clearly, we need to fix the "origin of the term section" -- One improvement would be to elevate Mona's bit to put it right after the first sentence there. Then we can consider MVBW's approach to the Safire nonsense, or we could just remove it. SPECIFICO talk 23:52, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

This is not a useful suggestion for article improvement and it looks like it will be opposed by many editors at this page. I'll direct you to my posts below (which you hatted) about dispute resolution. -Darouet (talk) 02:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Why do you disagree? Please just speak for yourself. Mona's view is much more recent, and she is an expert and respected political commentator. Safire was just an offbeat op-ed variety column of the sort NYTimes likes to keep in the back corner. If you'll read Safire he's referring to events that are even less noteworthy today than they were when he spun them into a column. I am not seeking DR. I am making an obvious and routine edit in line with previous discussion. Similarly, the contemporaneous report by notable Cold War era US diplomat Spruille Braden confirms Mona's research. SPECIFICO talk 02:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

SPECIFICO, thanks for your comments. Mona Charen writes,

"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. Though Lenin may never have actually uttered the phrase, it was consistent with his cynical style." (p. 10)

Charen labels all kinds of liberals as useful idiots: Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, Madeleine Albright, Katie Couric, Jane Fonda, and Martin Sheen (from the book's back cover), among others. Perhaps Charen is right that they were all useful idiots. But is that the point of this article?

As far as I can tell Charen devotes two sentences to the phrase "useful idiot," saying that it may not have been used by Lenin at all. So what is the point of citing her: to figure out the etymology of the phrase, which she doesn't seem interested in? Or to label a bunch of left-wing political figures in America as fifth column traitors and weak minds? Sorry, I don't see anything encyclopedic here, just a political diatribe against Charen's political enemies.

As to Safire, there's plenty you or I might find objectionable about him, but he did run a language and etymology column at the NYT for a few decades. His article — the whole thing, and not two sentences — is about the phrase "useful idiots." Here's a part of what he says:

"This seems to be Lenin's phrase, once applied against liberals, that is being used by anti-Communists against the ideological grandchildren of those liberals, or against anybody insufficiently anti-Communist in the view of the phrase's user. But as one who has tied himself in knots looking for Lenin's supposed quote on another subject -The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them, or words to that effect - I wondered when and where Lenin said it. We get queries on useful idiots of the West all the time, said Grant Harris, senior reference librarian at the Library of Congress. We have not been able to identify this phrase among his published works. A call to Tass, the Soviet news agency, gets a telephonic shrug and a referral to the Institute of Marxism and Leninism in Moscow; I tried them before, on the rope trick, and it's a waste of a stamp. I called Communist Party headquarters in New York City, thereby setting off tape recorders in a dozen F.B.I. offices (it's only me again, fellas), but to no avail. Librarian Harris got back to me, however, with a lead to the possible source of both the rope remark and the useful idiot attribution. Former Colgate Prof. Albert Parry writes in The St. Petersburg Times: You will not find the rope prophecy in any of the voluminous Lenin works published in the Soviet Union. Right."

Safire says that he tried to figure out if Lenin said this, and has attempted to figure out if Lenin ever used the Rope phrase, too. He contacted the Library of Congress. He contacted Tass. He even delved into Yuri Annenkov's personal papers to try to find some source for the Lenin statement, and didn't find it. Essentially, he's saying that he spent time and effort to research this question thoroughly, and discovered there's no evidence Lenin used the phrase. That's what we want at Wikipedia: a source that brings with it the reliability of investigation and fact-checking. And Safire appears to be backed up by the book, "They Never Said It," among other sources.

I'm not even sure how to compare that with Charen's two-sentence "Lenin may never have used the phrase" statement. At the very least, she seems to be agreeing with Safire there. -Darouet (talk) 23:45, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

The edits you're proposing are anything but obvious or routine, and they don't follow from the previous discussion. Several editors here have previously expressed strong opposition to similar proposals (e.g., removing or diminishing Safire's research into the etymology of "useful idiot"). William Safire's article is one of the best sources we have on the subject of the phrase's etymology, however many epithets you may choose to describe him or his work with ("offbeat," "vintage," "token Nixonite," "glib op-ed punditry," etc.). Safire did real research into the subject (e.g., inquiring with a senior reference librarian at the Library of Congress who's researched the issue), which he documented in his article.

Mona Charen's writing on the subject is also worthwhile including, though she doesn't write much about the etymology of the term. She says that the attribution to Lenin is questionable, but the focus of her book is not on etymology - it's on identifying American liberals that she considers to be "useful idiots." In any case, her views are already discussed prominently in the "Origin of the term" section.

Spruille Braden never gave a "report" on the origin of the term "useful idiot." He once gave a speech in which he called some people "useful idiots," and said Stalin used the term. He didn't write any article on the etymology, didn't say how he came to the conclusion that Stalin used (or perhaps originated) the term "useful idiot," and there's no indication he ever researched the issue at all. He's just one of many people throughout the past several decades who have used the term, and attributed it in passing to one or another Communist figure (usually Lenin).

I don't see how you can conclude that Spruille Braden's passing remark confirms Mona Charen's research. Putting aside the fact that we have no indication Braden ever researched the topic, Mona Charen does not write that Stalin originated the term "useful idiot." She writes, in fact, that the attribution to Lenin is questionable. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:48, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree. There is no consensus for this proposal. The Safire-related material has been in the article since 2007. Safire's original newspaper column has been confirmed by They Never Said It (1989) and the Dictionary of Espionage (2012). No valid reason to remove Safire has been given.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:43, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Sources

• If any part of the problem is unavailability of sources, I'll be happy to obtain anything you can find in http://hollisclassic.harvard.edu. EEng 21:22, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Any specific information on the origin of the term "useful idiot" would be helpful, but I can't nominate a source.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:03, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

@EEng: thanks for your kind offer. Recently there has been conflict over this source, Dezinformatsia (book), and whether it should be included in the article or not. The issue was whether the book includes discussion of the phrase "Useful idiot," and if not, whether its discussion of "Agents of influence" is sufficient to warrant mention here.

I recently went and found the book, and so far as I can tell, it never mentions "Useful idiot," though it does have a chapter on "Agents of influence." I looked up all the references to Lenin and none appear to have any link to the phrase which is the subject of this article. In my memory the book quoted Lenin writing that "War is the continuation of politics by other means," while failing to note that this is famously the phrase of Carl von Clausewitz, whom Lenin was obviously quoting. Perhaps I'm misremembering and this mistake was from another book close by on the shelf in the library. However — and I will check my notes after work today — if the book did make this mistake it comes across as very sloppy.

Re: Jack Upland's comment, While I was at the library I was wishing I could enlist some librarian to track down the origin of this phrase, as Safire and the Library of Congress attempted (see above, Useful idiot#Sources and attribution of phrase). But that seems way excessive for busy librarians, considering that this is a trivial wikipedia dispute. -Darouet (talk) 14:15, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

From my experience, some librarians would like the intellectual challenge. It would be good to find the first time the phrase was attributed to Lenin. The OED says the first instance it could find was in the 1940s, and no one has challenged that. And that fits in with similar phrases used at that time, at the start of the Cold War. But these uses don't attribute the phrase to Lenin. The earliest attribution we have is in 1959, a decade later, but we don't have a secondary source that confirms this.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:44, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

• I spent some time on this Friday and ordered some obscure sources from storage. I probably won't have time to look at them for them for a few days, but in any event I don't hold out much hope. We'll see. Please don't kill each other in the meantime. EEng 01:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

• It would be good to know the sources that Mona Charen cites for her comment about the origin of the phrase — Mona Charen (2003), Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, Regnery Publishing, p. 10, ISBN 978-0895261397) — since this is now being cited as more up-to-date research...--Jack Upland (talk) 05:29, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

In the part of the book available on Google Books, where she briefly discusses the origin of the term "useful idiot" (p. 10), Mona Charen doesn't cite any sources. She actually writes very little about the origin of the term on p. 10 (two sentences), and we already basically paraphrase everything she has to say there (the phrase is widely attributed to Lenin, although he may never have actually said it; it would fit with his "cynical style"). It would be useful to know if Mona Charen actually writes about the origin of the term in any detail. From the table of contents of her book, it looks like she doesn't. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:07, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't look hard enough. There are no citations, no signs of etymological research, and what she says mutely chimes in with Safire.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:44, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• I've now done a very wide survey of several dozen sources on quotations, soviet history, espionage, and Lenin and his works. I'm very busy IRL for a few more days, and it will be something of a job to present them all. You guys still interested? EEng 01:35, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

• Yes. This will give due credit where credit is due and should end the revisionist revisionism. Thanks for your efforts. SPECIFICO talk 01:37, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I think you can infer from my "several dozen" that it's pretty much all negative evidence, so be prepared (though I think no one will be entirely happy with my summary of what I found). EEng 03:06, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't want your work to go to waste, so when you have time, please let us know what you found. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:33, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree. And I think we should all be happy to have a deeper understanding of the issue.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:44, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

• I still intend to get to this. I just need a quiet two hours. EEng 21:57, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

@EEng: Got over the procrastination yet? (guilty myself!) Seriously, we'd love to read the outcome of your research, whenever you find time. — JFG ^talk 15:58, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually I was in Japan for a few weeks. I've got the books, now where are those notes... ? Stand by. EEng 16:17, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I swear to God I'll get to this, but I'm traveling again. EEng 04:33, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Soviet source using "Useful Idiot"?

In this comment above (as well as here), it was claimed that this source proves that the Russian term for "useful idiot" was used in the Soviet Union, and that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is therefore wrong when it says, "The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union." There's only one small problem with that argument: the source was neither written nor published in the Soviet Union.

How do I know this?

The first hint is the publication information that Google Books gives. While Google Books does not give detailed information about where the source was published, it does give the name of the journal, which is "третбя волна," which means "Third Wave." The publisher of the journal is given as "Русский культурный центр в Монжероне," which means "Russian Cultural Center of Montgeron." Now, Montgeron is a suburb of Paris. I can't find much information on the Russian Cultural Center there, but I did manage to find two books that mention a community of emigré artists living in Montgeron in the 1970s and 80s. One of them even mentions the "Third Wave" of Russian emigrés, which matches the title of the journal. Already, this is pretty good evidence that this source, while written in Russian, is not from the Soviet Union, but rather from France.

The next hint is in the text of the snippet Google Books provides:

я при иных обстоятельствах горячо защищал. но мне кажется, что синявский совершает двойную ошибку. мне кажется что он путает термин „либерал“ с термином „радикал“ и с такмн определениямн, как „салонный радикал“, „попутчик“, „полезный идиот“
— Google Books

This translates roughly to (please correct me if I've done a poor job here):

I ardently defended [him] under other circumstances. But it seems to me that Sinyavsky is making a double mistake. It seems to me that he confuses the term "liberal" with the term "radical" and with the definitions of "salon radical," "fellow traveler," "useful idiot"
— rough translation based on Google Translate

Earlier, Jack Upland asked what this source states (in English) and why "useful idiot" was in quotation marks. My very best wishes replied that the phrase is in quotation marks in order to emphasize that it's an exact quote by Lenin or other Bolsheviks. But we see from the above English translation that the reason "useful idiot" („полезный идиот“) is in quotation marks is that the author is quoting Sinyavsky's (синявский) use of the term, along with Sinyavsky's use of other political terms.

Who is this Sinyavsky that the author is critiquing? It's almost certainly Andrei Sinyavsky, a Soviet dissident and emigré who lived from the early 1970s onward in exile in the suburbs of Paris. This is the person that the source says used the term "useful idiot," not Lenin or the other Bolsheviks. In fact, the person using the term was an opponent of the Soviet government (and a famous one at that), whose work was featured by the American Cold-War-era broadcaster Radio Liberty.

What this source tells us is that a Soviet dissident living in France used the term "useful idiot" (in a way that another Russian emigré author thought was incorrect). It does not tell us that the term was used in the Soviet Union, or much less that it originates with Lenin or any other Bolshevik. Quite the contrary, the fact that an opponent of the Soviet Union living in Western Europe would use the term is consistent with the idea that "useful idiot" was primarily a Western term used to label people viewed as dupes of the Soviet Union. That is, coincidentally, what the earliest-known uses of the term "useful idiot" in English reflect (i.e., Italian conservatives calling their political opponents to the left "useful idiots").

This source was misinterpreted in the above discussion about the Oxford English Dictionary, and used as supposed evidence that the OED's research was wrong. But with a little investigation into the source, it turns out that the source doesn't contradict the OED at all. It appears the researchers at the OED know what they're doing. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

This is utterly tenuous and tendentious OR nonsense, and we've clearly established consensus here to the contrary, including an RfC with much prior and subsequent discussion. SPECIFICO talk 00:54, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Consensus changes, especially as new evidence comes to light and new arguments are made. The evidence I showed above demonstrates that one of the arguments made against the OED's credibility, that this supposedly Soviet source used the phrase "useful idiot," was wrong. I guess the original argument about that source discrediting the OED could be called original research, but it was made a number of times, and it turns out to be incorrect. If you're opposed to OR, I would think you'd be thanking me for discrediting it. I think you'll agree with my assessment of the source - that it's clearly not a Soviet source, but rather an article published by a Russian journal in Paris, and that the person being quoted is not Lenin (or another Bolshevik), but rather Andrei Sinyavsky, a Russian dissident and critic of the Soviet Union. I don't see how providing this information could be a bad thing, or why you'd attack me for shedding some light on this source. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:46, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Google Books is somehow showing me a bit more text now, which comes directly after the passage I cited above:

не против либералов выстуапает Максимов, а против зтих последних, и здесь попадает прямо в точку. Именно как либерал я чувствую себя полностыю с той яростной критикой,
— Google Books

My best shot at the translation (again, correct me if I've made any major mistakes here) is as follows:

Maximov is not against the liberals, but against the latter group ["salon radical," "fellow traveler," "useful idiot"], and here he gets straight to the point. As a liberal, I feel full of that fierce criticism,
— rough translation of the above

The "latter group" refers to the "salon radicals," "fellow travelers" and "useful idiots," based on the preceding sentence. The Maximov discussed here is pretty easy to identify: Vladimir Maximov, another dissident writer who lived in exile in Paris, and who was part of the "Third Wave" of migration. The Independent has an obituary of him, which describes him as part of the "Third Wave" (matching the title of the journal) of emigration from the Soviet Union, and which notes his fierce criticism of Western left intellectuals. Again, this shows that the source that was earlier claimed as an example of Soviet usage of the term "useful idiot" ("полезный идиот") is actually an example of dissidents living in the West using the term to attack people on the Left, rather than Communists using the term to describe their dupes in the West. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:24, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to do that. I note that in the RfC my opponents, several of them Russian-speakers, refused to provide a translation of the text that "proved" the OED wrong. Given the history of this page, I was always confident that this supposed source would prove bogus. I didn't realise how bogus it would be. It is ironic that you are being accused of "original research", when this "source" was an example of "original research" of the worst possible kind. I don't think this changes the RfC. The outcome was that we should cite the OED's comment with the proviso that we attribute the comment to the OED (which I would do anyway). The problem is currently we have the statement that the phrase was used in the USSR which cites a source that says no such thing (see above).--Jack Upland (talk) 08:10, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Several sources state that. I agree none of this changes the RfC. Let's move on. SPECIFICO talk 12:07, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jack Upland: I agree - the statement in the lede is probably just factually wrong, and there's no good sourcing for it: "The phrase was used by Soviet communists and the KGB to refer to persons in the West their country had successfully manipulated." It's remarkable that the lede makes this declaration, despite the apparent lack of Soviet sources that actually use the term. One of the justifications for including this statement in the lede was the supposed proof, in the form of the source I discuss above, that the term was used in the Soviet Union. If it were really so clear that the term was in regular use in the Soviet Union, you'd think someone would be able to point to Soviet sources using the term. We have abundant examples of Western sources using the term, but nothing from the Soviet Union. That's strange for a supposedly Soviet phrase. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:33, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for taking the time to look into that source. I was always a bit skeptical about it since its use appeared to be pure OR, and since we couldn't verify it. The source was used repeatedly to try to convince DIYeditor that the phrase was indeed used in the Soviet Union. One possible reason that it's hard to find evidence for its use there is that the OED may end up being correct. However, this appears to lend credence to the extended discussion of phrase in the Boller and George Oxford University Press book, "They Never Said It." The authors identify the phrase not with Lenin, but with anti-Communists:

"Lenin, it is said, once described left-liberals and Social Democrats as "useful idiots," and for years anti-Communists have used the phrase to describe Soviet sympathizers in the West, sometimes suggesting that Lenin himself talked about "useful idiots of the West." But the expression does not appear in Lenin's writings. "We get queries on useful idiots of the West all the time," declared Grant Harris, senior reference librarian at the Library of Congress in the spring of 1987. "We have not been able to identify this phrase among his published works."

I suspect that Boller and George, the Library of Congress, and William Safire at the NYT are right on this one. -Darouet (talk) 00:57, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the expression was used also by Sinyavsky, just as it was used by Lenin and by a lot of other people who lived in the USSR (and of course I know this too because I lived in the USSR). This is something a lot of sources tell (see refernces in many sections of this talk page). Note that Safire and Boller do not tell it was not used in the USSR. They only tell they could not find exact quotation in written works by Lenin.My very best wishes (talk) 04:00, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

You used the Sinyavsky source several times in the above discussions to "prove" that the phrase was used in the Soviet Union. Given the above information, you accept that that "proof" was erroneous, right?

Safire and Boller do not just say that they could not find the exact quotation in Lenin's written works. They looked for evidence that the phrase derives from him in general, and were unable to find any. Here's Safires conclusion on the phrase "useful idiot":

In the meantime, outspoken anti-Communists have permission to use useful idiots of the West as well as the West will sell us the rope with which to hang them, but must not precede either with "As Lenin said . . ." until more precincts are heard from. Instead, try "As Lenin was reported to have said . . ." or "In a phrase attributed to Lenin. . . ."
— William Safire

That's a lot broader a conclusion than merely not being able to find the "exact phrase" in Lenin's written works. Safire couldn't find any evidence that the phrase derived from Lenin, and Safire's conclusion was that it cannot be attributed to him until evidence is found ("until more precincts are heard from").

The situation regarding this phrase looks very similar to the situation surrounding "Be the change you want to see in the world" (which turns out not to be a Gandhi quote) and "May you live in interesting times" (a great curse, but despite the common belief, not a Chinese one). If we were to write an article about the phrase, "Be the change you want to see in the world," we could cite an endless number of sources attributing the quote to Gandhi. On the other hand, there would be a very small number of sources that specifically deal with the etymology of the quote, which would explain that there's no evidence that Gandhi ever said it and that the earliest documented usage of the phrase comes from decades after his death. That's the exact situation we have here: there are many sources that use the phrase "useful idiot" and give a passing attribution to Lenin, but on the other hand, there are a few sources that specifically research the etymology, and find that there's no evidence of it originating with Lenin, that it first appeared decades after his death, and that it wasn't attributed to Lenin until long after its first documented usage. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:03, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

• No, I did not use "Sinyavskiy source" on the page because it is not available online (that was only a snippet view); it can only be used to see that the term was indeed used in Russian language sources. Also, once again, none of the sources currently quoted on the page except OED tells clearly and explicitly "the expression was NOT used in the USSR" (OED does not tell it too if you read whole entry). But many sources (including "Synavsky") do tell it was used in the USSR. My very best wishes (talk) 05:18, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

You did so multiple times, including here and here, unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "Sinyavsky source." I'm talking about the Russian-language source that you posted several times, which critiques Sinyavsky's use of the term "useful idiot" and discusses Maximov's views of the source. That's the source I discussed above in detail. It was written and published by dissidents living in Paris, not in the Soviet Union. You used that source as evidence that the term was used in the Soviet Union, but it wasn't actually a Soviet source. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:27, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

I did not use it in the article (mainspace). According to citation in sources dated 1970-1980s (including that one), the term was widely used in Russian language. It was the same language in Russia/SU and "abroad". My very best wishes (talk) 06:17, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

No, the source that discusses Sinyavsky does not say that the term was widely used in the Russian language. It simply says that Sinyavsky is misinterpreting the term, and that Maximov uses the term. It makes no claims about wider usage of the term in Russian language, much less in the Soviet Union. By the way, the dispute here has never been about whether or not the term has ever been used in Russian. The dispute is about the etymology of the term, and its use in the Soviet Union. Did Lenin originate the term, and was it in use in the Soviet Union? There's no evidence for Lenin having originated the term, and so far, you've been citing a source written and published in France as supposed proof that the term was used in the Soviet Union. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:46, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Just to add: thanks for clarifying about citing the Sinyavsky source on the talk page vs. mainspace. You agree that that source does not demonstrate usage of the term "useful idiot" in the Soviet Union, right? -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:50, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

The source does not tell the term was used in Russian language. It actually uses the term in Russian language, as a matter of fact. Hence the claim in OED is false. But this is getting ridiculous because we repeat this for already third time. My very best wishes (talk) 03:58, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree. This was settled and nothing has changed except for the long bludgeon posts on this page -- ignoring all previous discussion and other references. SPECIFICO talk 04:03, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

There was never any debate whether the term was used in Russian. Stop distorting the issue.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:39, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: If the OED entry on "useful idiot" said, "Nobody has ever used this expression in Russian," then your argument here would be valid. But that's not what the OED says. Here's what the OED says: "The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union." Please stop repeating the false argument that this source disproves the OED. It doesn't. France is not in the Soviet Union. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:06, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Thucs, if you repeat the behavior that got you banned from this topic, what do you expect to happen next? Please do not disparage MVBW and let's move on to other matters. SPECIFICO talk 16:06, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: this is a simple issue — the source has been grossly misrepresented — and since it was published by a Soviet dissident in Paris, it cannot demonstrate, even if we were to allow WP:OR, that this phrase was used in the Soviet Union.

Thucydides has repeatedly left detailed, helpful comments on the sources we're discussing above, and has somehow managed to ignore your provocative responses.

You are not commenting on the content of this dispute, but are instead threatening Thucydides411 with some kind of ban, which you also seem to have done indirectly here a few days ago. You've been sanctioned in the past for creating hostile editing environments, and while NeilN recently lifted a restriction placed upon you for inappropriately calling for bans [14], I hope you will stop personally attacking and provoking other editors, on pages that are supposed to be dedicated to article improvement, and instead focus on sources, and content. -Darouet (talk) 20:00, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: The source does not tell the term was used in Russian language. It actually uses the term in Russian language, as a matter of fact. Hence the claim in OED is false. But this is getting ridiculous because we repeat this for already third time. As a I said before, for the use in the 1940s in English to "reflect" a use in the Soviet Union it would have to be based on that use. That's what reflect means in English. From the OED: "Embody or represent (something) in a faithful or appropriate way." To reflect something in Soviet usage the Soviet usage must have occurred first. You haven't offered any contradiction of the OED's claim that the Soviet usage was not before the English usage, or any evidence of its use in Russian at all other than it being used decades later.

Citing the fact that it was used in Russian as a contradiction of the OED is your original research (analysis) even if it seems obvious to you. Or to put it another way, you're using it as a primary source rather than secondary. And not very effectively. Indeed you would want a source that did "tell the term was used in Russian language" rather than a source that uses it as a matter of fact. Further you would want that source to be authoritative on the subject and date the use in Russian to the 1940s or before. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:40, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

The fact that such a phrase was not written does not preclude that it was ever said. Anecdotal evidence is easily covered by "purported to have been said; first mentioned..." Landroo (talk) 18:00, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

IP edits

I reverted this. The reasons: (a) IP removed relevant and well sourced text; (b) the cited source does not tell anything about "Cold war". My very best wishes (talk) 20:00, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Your edit removed much more than just that, with no explanation whatsoever. The material the IP removed, a reference to a polemic written by Mona Charen, has very little reason for being on this page. It could perhaps be included in the "Use of the term" section, but even there it's tottering on the edge of irrelevance. The phrase did originate during the Cold War, in the specific context of the Cold War in Italy, as far as our sources indicate. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:40, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

FYI

Sagecandor, one of the editors who kicked off the "war" in 2017, has been blocked as a sock.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:38, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Remove image of Lenin

The image of Lenin was added to the article when the article still (mis)attributed the term to Lenin. Leaving the photo on the page only serves to perpetuate the common misattribution--it should have been removed when the article was updated to mention the common misattribution. The only relevancy Lenin has to the article anymore is that he is sometimes incorrectly cited as the source of the term, hardly worthy of a photo call-out. Randolphnimmer (talk) 04:57, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The misattribution is notable. I think we should retain the picture.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:56, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The picture is the most visible part of the page--it further entrenches the (incorrect) association between 'useful idiot' and Lenin. Having a picture for the most notable piece of the page is sensible, which Lenin is not. Randolphnimmer (talk) 04:47, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Agree, picture should be removed. —DIYeditor (talk) 10:36, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

The article is about Lenin, something Lenin didn't say. If you take Lenin away, the phrase just becomes a random phrase, and the article might as well be deleted.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:53, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Per Upland; it would be akin to not mentioning Humphrey Bogart in the Play it again, Sam article. ——SerialNumber54129 11:09, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

The article in question has been replaced. Looking at the history, I do not see a photo of Humphrey Bogart on the article, although he is mentioned. I agree Lenin should be mentioned in this article to clarify the misattribution. The photo, on the other hand, goes too far and reinforces the misattribution. The first thing a reader sees upon entering the article is Lenin's face. Can we agree to mention Lenin in the article without depicting him? Randolphnimmer (talk) 03:28, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

It's been well over 24 hours with no more replies from the 'keep it' side, and we stand at 3 for removal and 2 for keeping. I'm going to re-remove it based on the apparent consensus. Randolphnimmer (talk) 15:42, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

• Remove the photo. It's the sort of thing you'd see in a children's book, like the lead image here [15]. EEng 06:11, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

As it was, the inclusion of the photo was misleading. The photo and caption ("The phrase is often attributed to Lenin.") might give readers the impression that the phrase is solidly attributed to Lenin, despite there being no evidence for the attribution (and some evidence against it). A different caption might be clearer, but the article is probably better off without the photo at all. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:39, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand EEng#s's comment about a children's book, nor his link to the Mayday article. What we have now is a colourless article without a picture.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:19, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

EEng is renowned for his colourful sense of humour. — JFG ^talk 13:44, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I think you mean off-color sense of humor. My point about the images is they're the sort of not-really-related images that children's books include to buoy the reader's sagging interest and stimulate his or her imagination, but which are only tangentially related to whatever you're talking about. EEng 15:01, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Examples inclusion criteria

Clearly, examples anound. However per WP:TRIVIA we have to include only ones which discussed in secondary sources, meaning the usage cited has cultural significance. - Altenmann >talk 02:39, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I've removed two examples that were recently added. There should be clearer criteria for inclusion of examples. I've left the examples that show historical evolution of the term (e.g., the examples that show how the term came to be associated with Lenin in the US during the 1950s-60s), as well as the examples mentioned by William Safire and the book, They Never Said It. If there are other historical usages that have received significant attention afterwards, then we can include them. I don't think, however, that we should include examples from recent news stories, or else we'll end up with dozens of recent examples. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:25, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

You removed examples and referenced material relating to the CCP saying there was consensus for doing so - that's a 'non-truth'. The modern usage of the term 'Useful Idiot' is primarily applied to non-Chinese citizens who promote CCP propaganda abroad. It's discussed in secondary sources and has 'cultural significance'. It therefore warrants inclusion. Please note that WP:COI editing is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Before the Bang (talk • contribs) 03:23, 14 September 2020 (UTC)‎

@Before the Bang: Are you suggesting that I have a COI? Please read WP:NPA.

As for inclusion criteria: the editors here have generally moved towards limiting the number of example usages of the term "useful idiot." The term is a widely used epithet in American and British politics, and if we were to include every usage of the term, this article would be many times longer than it is. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:52, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Mistake in the translation

"Korisne budale" means "Useful Fools", not "Useful Innocents". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.149.154.85 (talk) 21:29, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Second this comment. Budala refers to a fool, a stupid person, not an innocent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.159.16.147 (talk) 14:57, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

We've been through this discussion before. Look at the talk section "Error in Origin" below. In this context, an "innocent" refers to a naive person. Moreover, this is how the quote was written in English, so it doesn't really matter if the translation was accurate. The important thing is what was written in English. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:48, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I just wanted to add a "third" upping of the recommendation to at least add a parenthetical regarding the actual direct translation of the plural of the word budale as fools. I don't fully understand declining to do so as essentially defending the accuracy of a mistake because it faithfully reproduces - again - a mistake in a given language. Yes, a direct quote is cited with strict, formal accuracy, but reproducing it accurately repeats an inaccurate translation. The inaccurate translation in the context of the topic misleads the reader as it would suggest this alternate term "useful innocents" is accurate based on the successive repetition of it through the 2-3 examples given even as one of the examples is incorrect. As one of the key parts of the broader topic "useful idiot" is its loose, in the ballpark repetition of Leninist attribution despite there being no set attribution to Lenin, it is useful in the context of "useful innocents" to have illustrated that the "more or less" quality of loosely bandying about such phrases still adheres in its context as well. Assuming the reader will shrug off the translation mistake is perhaps too paternalistic. 199.66.13.72 (talk) 20:30, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Why is this even a debate? The quote clearly says "useful idiots" (or fools) in Serbo-Croatian. Regardless of a non-native English speaker's personal translation--it is wrong. Do we know if the original article was composed in English? Did Raditsa compose it in Serbo-Croatian? Frankly, the entire section regarding Raditsa should be removed unless the phrase is accurately explained. He may not have coined the term, but he sure as hell wrote it in Reader's Digest.

Furthermore, the context is key--in Serbo-Croatian "budala" is an insult...the kind a communist would direct toward a pro-democracy ally. Calling someone innocent is more condescending and banal. 68.111.65.66 (talk) 04:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

2 years later the mistranslation persists. I am editing the page. This is ridiculous.

~~ 119.18.1.116 (talk) 11:16, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

It is not a mistranslation, and it comes from the original article. It is unacceptable to edit a direct quote. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:08, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Error in Origin

In the last sentence, "It is Korisne Budale, or Useful Innocents" should say 'useful idiots.' Nikolaneberemed (talk) 13:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

That's a direct quote from the source, not a translation any Wikipedia editor came up with. There's really nothing we can do to change the translation - that's the translation that Reader's Digest gave. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:48, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

In an attempt to prevent Wikipedia from sustaining the incorrect translation I have just added a link to an article that explains the inaccuracy and provides a correct one. Cloud200 (talk) 20:24, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Is "Quote Investigator" a reliable source? It looks like a blog. I think that in context, the phrase "useful innocents" is very close in meaning to "useful idiots." The word "innocent" here is a condescending term for someone who is naive. I think we can retain the quote as it originally appeared, without citing a blog post to "correct" it (and I'm not sure it's actually a correction).

In any case, the point of this quote is to show an early usage of a very similar term to "useful idiot" in English. Whether or not Bogdan Raditsa correctly translated the Croatian term into English isn't really that relevant. The point is that he introduced a new term into the English language, "useful innocents."

On a different note, should we re-order the Raditsa and von Mises quotes? That would make better chronological sense. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Looking again at Quote Investigator, it does not say that the translation from Serbo-Croat is incorrect, but rather that "useful fools" is a more "direct" translation. Both translations have largely the same sense, so I don't think it's necessary to correct Raditsa's phrase. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

No need to change "innocents", but chronological would be better.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Wrong Assertion

The assertion that there is no documentation that Lenin once used the term is wrong. There are sources in which Karl Radek quoted Lenin as using the term. Therefore, there should be correction for this entry. Please refer to the corresponding entry of Russian Wikipedia. --Aronlee90 (talk) 13:44, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Can you post the source here? -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:09, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Policy. No. 1, 1990. Publishing House of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia. S. 105.--Aronlee90 (talk) 02:33, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't have immediate access to that source. Could you cite the relevant passage from it? Does that work cite earlier source documents that can be checked? If Karl Radek really did quote Lenin as using the term, there must be an earlier source than 1990, which is more than 50 years after Radek's death. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:37, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Early use of the phrase

I have removed this:

The term was defined by Heinrich Zschokke in 1804. "Anyone who sacrifices themselves to a narcissist is called a useful idiot."

The term was used referring to politics in The Saturday Review, June 10, 1864. An unnamed voter, "one of those useful idiots", was ridiculed by a politician for his extreme anti-government stance.

This documents uses of the phrase, but not use of the term as described in this article. Moreover, we have no secondary source which connects these primary sources with the current use of the term.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:53, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't often edit wiki stuff, so I apologize for my markup informality or unintended pithiness - or well, length of comment. I understand your reasoning for removing those, I can get in that headspace, but would counter that the current use of term can't be understood with specificity without the context of these other earlier uses. My reasoning is that the modern use of the phrase is almost always just a "stand in" or placeholder for a larger cultural shorthand. As in, when people use the term today its used not so much for its literal meaning (which borders on the generic) but always so the leninist attribution or baggage can be coupled with it to make a more abbreviated point or catchall historical assertion. So to have the phrase show up in precisely such generic, literal terms pre-lenin allows the reader to reflect on its modern useage as it functions beyond just its unspectacular, and non-unique phraseology. I would recommend placing them both back in. 199.66.13.72 (talk) 21:07, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. This is not a record of phrases used.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:20, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

References

Articles should have a neutral point of view!

Articles should have a neutral point of view. Cold war belligerents should be presented as equal. This article is strongly biased and presents the US as the good guys and USSR as the bad guys. Therefore it is in violation of Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy.

If the article is not improved significantly, then it will be suggested for deletion.

Ginekolog (talk) 00:02, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Please make the changes that you think need to be made. Alternatively, if you are unsure, please explain specifically what you think is wrong with this article. Or you could start the deletion process.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:06, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Jesus Christ! Next you'll tell me nazi pages need to be rewritten because they present nazis as bad guys.46.33.152.203 (talk) 10:00, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

That's not the main bias of the article. The main bias is only referring to the term as used by the right wing to refer to anyone they disagree with, when in fact if one wanted to use this pejorative it could equally be used to refer to those on the right who support right wing extremists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 102.65.54.41 (talk) 09:46, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Earliest usage

Google ngram shows two blips on its radar for 1820-1830 and for 1860-1870 ranges. The second blip is likely in our article. Anybody up for hunting down the first one? Turning "smoothing" off, the pinpoint is 1824. - Altenmann >talk 04:17, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

A better search is at archive.org because they search 100% of each book whereas Google has more limited search within each book. Go to archive.org -> click on the second search box (not the wayback machine) -> click the "Search text contents" radio button -> enter "useful idiots" (in quotes) -> sort results on date of publication -> resort based on earliest first (the up and down arrows on the left side). It brings up many 19th century results, like Congressional Records from 1873. -- GreenC 15:49, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I tried; It looks like this tool messes with publication dates mightily. - Altenmann >talk 20:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

The term has a lot of hits so it's going to bring up a lot of false positives on the early date edges due to metadata entry problems, this is to be expected (like OCR errors "1785" instead of "1985"). But this is a good sign it means it's getting a lot of hits because of in-depth complete searching, unlike Google Books which has few hits in the early period. It's not difficult to scroll past them visually to find real sources. -- GreenC 15:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

"False attribution to Lenin"

Can someone check, which term was searched in Lenin's works: "полезный идиот" or "полезный дурак" (booth singular and plural), because both of them were attributed to Lenin (of course without references :-}). - Altenmann >talk 01:03, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

You are flogging a dead horse. We go with the secondary sources that we have.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:02, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Why is that? I am asking to check the secondary sources quoted (and not yet quoted). If Lenin used the phrase, say, "useful morons", and later that was misremembered as "useful idiots" then it is a completely different story. The meaning of the phrase will not change with the change of the derogatory word used it. Our article is already on shaky grounds of original research where it says "related terms". - Altenmann >talk 03:11, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Hah! The second footnoted ref says that Grant Harris of LOC failed to find the phrase "useful idiots of the West", not "useful idiots". The first footnote is behind the firewall but I did find a pdf of William Safire's NYT article, and indeed it says the same. What is more, Safire's title is "Useful idiots of the West" and not "Useful Idiots", which should have been a red flag. - Altenmann >talk 03:25, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Conclusion: Hold your dead horses: the falseness of the attribution to Lenin of the term "useful idiots" is not proven yet, and I am editing the section accordingly. - Altenmann >talk 03:25, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, we don't "prove" things. We merely report what reliable secondary sources say. Proof is for original research papers, not Wikipedia. And your suggestion that because the source says "Useful idiots of the west" it's not the same thing as "Useful idiots", fails common sense. -- GreenC 04:07, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Hold on you too, collegue. On wikipedia we do "prove" things in talk pages all the time. In particular I am often working to prove that some sloppy wikipedian misquoted or misattributed something. Heck, just today I "proved" that some wikipedians mistook a parody book for a "reliable source". I fixed this by writing the article "Nasology" (enjoy) and fixed several wikipedia articles accordingly (mostly removing references to it). - Altenmann >talk 04:17, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree completely. Not sure who keeps adding this bit back in with not a single reliable source to back it up. Ditchdigger456 (talk) 14:47, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

OK so we prove things, sometimes, when there is an obvious common sense problem per WP:COMMONSENSE, which trumps all policy, I get that. Do you have proof Lenin said it? The senior official at the Library of Congress, who is often queried on this question, and had the formidable resources of his professional research staff at a world-class library, said there is no proof Lenin said it. Do we trust the Library of Congress, or the opinions of anonymous editors on a Wikipedia talk page? I can guess where this would go, should it ever rise to the point of an RFC, with dozens of neutral editors brought in from the wider community. -- GreenC 15:32, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

No, the senior official at the LOC did not said that, as I clearly explained above. Yes, it is COMMONSENSE, but it has nothing to do with all policy, but with reading comprehension of sources cited. - Altenmann >talk 17:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh, this is your assertion that "Useful idiots of the West" is not the same thing as "Useful Idiots", which is making something out of nothing. I'd still like to see what evidence Lenin said "Useful Idiot(s)" .. regardless of where the idiots are from: Russia, the West, Mars. -- GreenC 18:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I assert nothing, I just read the sources and don't speculate. On the contrary, I suspect your assertion is "Useful idiots of the West" is the same as "useful idiots". And I'd like to see the same, but I guess nobody cares to read whole 52 volumes of Lenin, not to say about memoirs about him. I remember the great excitement about Lenin's hanging order, as it it was the sole bloodthirsty Lenin's utterance. If anybody cared reading Lenin, they would have known better; see. eg a colleciton of quotes here. - Altenmann >talk 20:34, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Quotes from the source:

• Librarian Harris got back to me, however, with a lead to the possible source of both the rope remark and the useful idiot attribution.
• denouncing Congressmen who were pro-Sandinista and anti-contra, useful idiots.
• insists that the party is not playing the role of the useful idiots for the Russians, a phrase used by Lenin to describe left-liberals and Social Democrats
• a Times headline on another topic read: Lenin's 'Useful Idiots' in Salvador.
• fellow travelers who support this [ Soviet ] propaganda effort in Western Europe. We call them useful idiots
• the deaf, dumb and blind phrase may be one of the phrases that helped start the useful idiots

Of the 9 times "useful idiot" is used in the article, only 3 of them concern "of the west". None of the other majority 6 quotes contain "of the west". It's plainly obvious the article is concerned with more than just the phrase that includes "of the west". -- GreenC 03:59, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Again, you are addressing a wrong issue. The issue is what Grant Harris of LOC reported. Clearly, there are plenty of sources discuss "useful idiots". - Altenmann >talk 04:11, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Ok then why are we atomizing Grant Harris, only, out of all the other people and sources discussed in the NYT article? It's a fairly nuanced and complex article with a number of theories, but the main takeaway is that there is no clear evidence Lenin ever said Useful Idiots directly, and analogous versions like the rope remark are even less clear. -- GreenC 15:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Because Harris is the only person who has a qualified opinion on the subject and I did add into our article that other sources the author contacted had just dodged the question. We also mention OED that ways they dont know. Therefore IMO our article says enough on the subject. - Altenmann >talk 16:38, 23 February 2024 (UTC)