In The Hero in History Sidney Hook argues that, with one possible exception, no great leader has managed singlehandedly to change the course of history. The one exception: Lenin. The Russian Revolution "was triumphant," writes Hook, "because of the directing leadership of Lenin …without him it would have been lost." Stalin, Lenin's sanguinary successor and founder of the "cult of personality," did manage, however, to place his own terrible stamp upon the Soviet system. Perhaps this double legacy is what accounts for the lingering perception in the West that Soviet behavior (and with it the destiny of the world) is dictated by the man at the top.