Editing Useful idiot (section)

== Variations of the term ==
The Serbo-Croatian term {{lang|sh|korisne budale}}, which may be translated as ''useful idiots'' or ''useful innocents'', attributed to unnamed Yugoslav communists, appears in a 1946 ''[[Reader's Digest]]'' article titled "Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World", written by [[Bogdan Raditsa]]. Raditsa had served the [[Yugoslav government-in-exile]] during World War II, supported [[Josip Broz Tito]]'s partisans but was not a communist himself, and briefly served in Tito's led [[Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia]] before leaving for New York.<ref>{{cite news|title=Yugoslavia Run by Russia, says Ex-Aide of Tito |work=[[Chicago Daily Tribune]] |date=24 September 1946|page=6|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->}}</ref> Raditsa said: "In the [[Serbo-Croat language]], the communists have a phrase for true democrats who consent to collaborate with them for [the sake of] 'democracy'. It is ''Korisne Budale'', or Useful Innocents."<ref name="RD-Raditsa">{{cite magazine|first=Bogdan|last=Raditsa|title=Yugoslavia's Tragic Lesson to the World|magazine=Reader's Digest Service|volume=49|year=1946|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rCgYAQAAIAAJ&q=%22korisne+Budale%22}}</ref> 

In his 1947 book ''Planned Chaos'', Austrian-American economist [[Ludwig von Mises]] wrote that the term ''useful innocents'' was used by communists for those whom von Mises describes as "confused and misguided sympathizers [of the revolutionary idea]".<ref> Ludwig von Mises, ''Planned Chaos'', Foundation for Economic Education, 1947, [https://books.google.com/books?id=1Tp2Fm-8RnYC&pg=PA29 p. 29].</ref> 

The expression was discussed in connection with two other related quotations attributed to Lenin (though no records have shown he has never used these phrases), which are also about Western "idiots" being manipulated by the Soviet communists. The quotations are known as "the rope" ("The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them") and the "deaf, dumb and blind". For example, [[William J. Bennett]] summarized that "'Useful idiot' was the term communists used for credulous Western businessmen", giving as an example [[Armand Hammer]] "who helped build up the Soviet Communist state".<ref name=bennett>{{citation|authorlink=William J. Bennett|first=William J. |last=Bennett|page=618|title=America: The Last Best Hope (Volume II): From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom|isbn=978-1595550576|publisher=Thomas Nelson}}</ref> Bennett recounted a famous story wherein Lenin was asked, "How will we hang the Capitalists, we don't have enough rope!"<ref name=bennett /> Lenin was reported (though there are no records of him doing so) to have "famously replied" with the rejoinder, "They will sell it to us &mdash; on credit."<ref name=bennett /> 

The rhetoric about the "rope" was summarized by economic theorists to represent Lenin's ideological conception is as follows<ref name ="Quotations">''The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture'' by Gary Saul Morson, [[Yale University Press]], 2011, page 98.</ref>
	
{{Quotation|They [capitalists] will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.}}
	
and the "dumb and blind" version of the quotation (is reported to be from handwritten notes by Lenin which was summarized by a painter of Lenin; Yuri Annenkov [no attempt has been made to confirm since April 12, 1987]) was the following:<ref name="safire" />
	
{{Quotation|To speak the truth is a petit-bourgeois habit. To lie, on the contrary, is often justified by the lie's aim. The whole world's capitalists and their governments, as they pant to win the Soviet market, will close their eyes to the above-mentioned reality and will thus transform themselves into men who are deaf, dumb and blind. They will give us credits . . . they will toil to prepare their own suicide.}}