Useful Idiots

[Ocean Seal]

So I've been called one by a rather trollish right winger who often deletes my posts when I debate him on facebook. What kind of pissed me off was that there is really no evidence that Lenin ever said the words "useful idiots" and I doubt he said them to describe the American comrades. So effectively did Lenin ever use the phrase useful idiots and if he did to whom was it directed to? And of course what was the purpose of it then. I did my research and I found that the words were wrongly attributed to Lenin. Is this correct and is there someone who more fully knows the history of these words?

[Tommy4ever]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

I assume you've checked wikipedia already, but here it says that the first record of the term was in an Italian social-democratic newspaper in 1948.

Again the article states that no record has ever been found of Lenin using these words (atleast written down anyway).

The term refers to people who supported the Soviet Union in the belief that it was pursuing a greater good in the world.

[AmericanCommie421]

The first written use wasn't until after Lenin died and I believe it was used originally to describe Americans that supported Stalin even though he forced colectivization in agriculture and killed political enemies.

[Strannik]

I belive these words were attributed to Lenin in the movie Die Hard 4 for the first time :P