SOURCE: "A Centenary View of Lenin," in International Affairs, Vol. XXXXVI, No. 3, July, 1970, pp. 490-500.

In the following essay, Toynbee explains why Lenin remains one of the most important twentieth-century historical figures despite the failure of communism.

Everyone has been speaking or writing of Lenin recently, and there is very little that I can add.

I will start with the obvious: Lenin is one of the few people in our lifetime who has been recognised within his own lifetime as being a figure of first-class importance in world history. By 'world history', of course, I mean the tail-end of world history, just the last 5, 000 years during which there have been records of people. No doubt there were as many other distinguished and able people in every branch of life in the first million years, but we do not have any record of them. But even to be as...