Useful idiots do not survive their usefulness

In 1979, the Iranian communist party, Tudeh, actively supported Khomeini's Islamist revolution, convinced that it could capitalize on it once the Shah was overthrown. Tolerated for a few years for its showcase value to the West, the communist party was banned in February 1983 and its leaders were arrested; a significant portion of its militants are reported by Amnesty International to be among the thousands of leftist prisoners executed in absolute secrecy during the prison purges of the summer of 1988, one of the darkest and least known episodes of the 20th century in Iran.

The circumstantial ally did not survive its usefulness. This is not an Iranian anecdote, an isolated case; it is a recurring mechanism that Lenin himself was aware of and that Stalin frequently used to get rid of those "friends" who became a bit too bothersome.

For progressives and other revolutionaries, if your opinions no longer suit them, they treat you as an enemy to be eliminated, regardless of the help you may have provided in the past.

The alliance as a mere instrument

The revolutionary logic does not establish alliances based on shared conviction, but rather on calculation, because an ally is worth what they contribute, as long as they contribute. It is the same instrumental relationship that this tradition maintains with the truth. For this side, a fact only has value if it serves the cause, and an alliance only has value if it serves to conquer and maintain power.

In France, the controversy sparked in February 2021 by Minister Frédérique Vidal, who called for an investigation by the CNRS into Islamo-leftism in universities, brought to light what several figures from the left have been denouncing for years, namely, electoral alliances woven by certain leftist currents with community intermediaries close to political Islam, in a purely tactical logic.

Vidal's statements provoked a statement signed by over a hundred academics denouncing a witch hunt, proof that the topic remains explosive in the French debate. Parties like La France Insoumise, from the far left, rely on this community vote to grow and believe that this way they will reach power. Thus, discussing this is a bit complex.

The turnaround has not yet occurred as in Iran; however, the scheme is already underway, and we must be careful, because it will be irreversible.

The Nicaraguan Church: from minister to prisoner

The Sandinista Nicaragua offers the most complete version of the mechanism in Latin America, as it closes the circle in less than forty years. In the 1980s, priests of liberation theology directly legitimized the revolution. For example, we saw Ernesto Cardenal becoming Minister of Culture, or Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, Minister of Foreign Affairs (the Vatican did not like this and imposed sanctions against them).

To regain power, Daniel Ortega turned again to the Catholic Church in the 2000s. But now, the same Sandinista movement is openly attacking the institution that had legitimized it, without remorse. Thus, Bishop Rolando Álvarez, detained in 2022, was sentenced in February 2023 to twenty-six years in prison, and was ultimately forcibly exiled to the Vatican in January 2024. Another example: the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Mother Teresa, were expelled in 2022.

The Church that lent its credibility to a revolution in 1979 ends up being persecuted by it in the 2020s, because it has no utility for Ortega. The Iranian communist who brought Khomeini to power dies in prison a few years later. Stalin's comrade-in-arms ends up in the Gulag.

What these examples share is not the ideology of the ally, because we have the church on one side, and Marxists on the other. But neither of them ever counted for themselves in the eyes of the movement they served, only for what they contributed, as long as they contributed.

We must be careful, because progressives are about to repeat this mistake, and it is the citizens (who have not asked for anything) who could end up paying the price...