useful idiot

Meaning

Noun

• Soviet sympathizer in Western countries, from the perspective of the political right.
• One who is seen to unwittingly support a malignant cause through their 'naive' attempts to be a force for good.

Origin

• The earliest known usage in Western media is in a 1948 article in the social-democratic Italian paper L'Umanita – as cited in the New York Times article on Italian politics.