About useful idiots and fellow travelers: today there are many on both the Left and the Right.
What is the difference between a useful idiot and a fellow traveler? For the record, “useful idiots” (a term coined not by Vladimir Lenin but first used mockingly in Britain against Russian nihilists of the 1860s) are unaware that they are being used for propaganda purposes by sinister regimes. Fellow travelers, on the other hand, are well aware but don’t care.In Soviet times, world-class celebrities such as Pablo Picasso, George Bernard Shaw, John Steinbeck, André Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre and John Dos Passos all made carefully orchestrated trips to admire the achievements of the mighty USSR.Most of these Commie-curious pilgrims were deeply impressed. “Tomorrow I leave this land of hope,” wrote Shaw in 1931 after a luxury river cruise and a visit to Stalin in the Kremlin, “and return to our Western countries – the countries of despair.” Others later became disillusioned. But for 70 years Kremlin propagandists were able to enlist a sizeable chunk of the West’s intellectuals to their cause. ....This week, a motley crew of Westerners, all self-professed Putin fanboys and girls, appeared at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) to express their solidarity with Holy Russia. Among them were manosphere influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who face charges in Romania and Britain for alleged rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain. ....American Right-wing influencer Candace Owens was at the forum too, as was the Kremlin’s favourite action hero Steven Seagal, beloved among pensioners as the star of history’s cheesiest karate movies. Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector and convicted paedophile, attended in his capacity as a prominent pro-Kremlin voice. ....The Kremlin’s attempts to demonstrate that it still has friends and supporters in the West look pathetic, ham-handed and deeply cringe. It’s a sad indication of Russia’s inferiority complex that they still crave validation by Westerners – even if they’re Q-Anon Tik-Tokers, steroidal weirdos and convicted perverts. And it’s a powerful indication of how far Russia’s soft power has fallen that they can’t recruit even half-decent idiots any more. (more)
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