THE USEFUL IDIOTS CONCEPT IN WESTERN LEFTIST CRITIQUE

This speech (from Lioness - S03E05) raises a well-known critique of the Western left, but it mixes a historically plausible observation with a problematic factual attribution.

What is the speech criticizing?

The argument goes something like this:

There are people in the West who advocate for seemingly humanitarian causes — peace, equality, anti-colonialism, workers' rights — and who, out of sympathy for certain revolutionary movements, end up politically favoring authoritarian regimes or projects that do not truly share those same values.

In other words, the critique is not simply "progressives are communists." It is more sophisticated:
a person can have good intentions and, precisely because of them, become politically useful to someone whose goals are very different from their own.

The mechanism would be:
legitimate ideal → emotional identification with a cause → suspension of critique → defense of a movement → utilization of that defense by a political structure.

This can happen, obviously, without the person being consciously manipulated.

Is there any historical truth to this?

Yes — but not exactly in the way the phrase suggests.

Western intellectuals and militants genuinely sympathized with the Soviet Union, with communism, or with revolutionary movements, and in some cases, they minimized or rationalized Soviet repression and authoritarianism. Jean-Paul Sartre is a famous example: his relationship with Soviet communism was much more complex than simply "being a Soviet agent," but he was criticized for his willingness to relativize certain crimes and repressions in the name of a larger political cause.

This produces a very interesting intellectual problem: when a moral conviction is strong enough, it can cause a person to interpret contrary evidence as enemy propaganda.

And this is not a characteristic unique to the left.
An anti-communist can do the exact same thing with an anti-communist authoritarian government. A liberal can do this with a Western power. A nationalist can do this with their own State. The psychological structure is:

"How could what I consider morally good be producing something morally bad?"

And then the temptation arises to explain the bad fact as an exception, historical necessity, enemy propaganda, etc.

But there is a huge problem with "Lenin used to call..."

The expression "useful idiots" is not documented as a phrase of Lenin's. The attribution appears decades after his death. Fred Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, found its use in a communist context in 1948 and the first identifiable attribution to Lenin in 1961.
Lenin died in 1924.

Therefore, it would be more accurate to say:

"The idea later associated with the expression 'useful idiots'..."

than to assert that Lenin "used to call" these people that.

Curiously, the idea behind the expression pre-dates it and is perfectly compatible with Leninist political logic: tactical alliances with groups that do not necessarily share the final goal of the revolution. But that is different from proving that Lenin specifically employed the term "useful idiots."

There is a second important point in the speech

The phrase "because on the surface what they wanted appeared to be what he wanted" is perhaps the most interesting part.
It recognizes that the similarity between two projects does not need to be fake.

For example:

"We want peace."

A Western socialist might genuinely want peace.
A Soviet State might also defend a policy of "peace" at a given moment.
But the two can mean completely different things by peace.
The former may want disarmament and the reduction of conflicts.
The latter may want a strategic advantage, to weaken an adversary, or to gain diplomatic influence.

So the critique is about the difference between declared goals and political functions.
It is a critique very close to what we would today call the political instrumentalization of a moral cause.

There is a trap in this critique

The concept of "useful idiot" can become an extremely convenient way to disqualify anyone who agrees with an adversary.
That is where the expression becomes intellectually dangerous.
Imagine:

"You advocate for peace, and that benefits Russia; therefore, you are Russia's useful idiot."

This proves absolutely nothing.
A person can defend a position because they sincerely believe in it, and the fact that this position also benefits an adversary does not prove manipulation.

The correct question would be:
"Is this person defending this position because they were manipulated, or because they have independent reasons to defend it?"

And further:
"Does the fact that a position benefits a certain actor invalidate the position?"
No.
If someone advocates for the end of a war and this simultaneously benefits both sides, it does not automatically turn that person into an instrument of either of them.

So I would say that the speech contains a politically valid critique, but formulated in a rhetorically biased way.

The valid part:

Well-intentioned people can be instrumentalized by political movements whose ultimate goals do not coincide with theirs.

The problematic part:

"Lenin called them useful idiots" — historically unproven attribution.

The ideologically dangerous part:

assuming that, because a position benefits a certain adversary, whoever defends it is being manipulated by them.

In fact, this last distinction is fundamental. "Being useful to a cause" is not the same as "being manipulated by that cause." And that distinction significantly changes the quality of the critique.