> The synthesis position is what I call here the “mediocre man” theory of history. The idea of this mediocre man theory is that history is not just shaped by great men or by mass sociological forces that make individual irrelevant. Instead, while it is shaped by structural forces, it is also shaped by ordinary people who end in positions of extraordinary importance.

This synthesis has already been done as early as at least 1898, see G.V. Plekhanov, "On the Role of the Individual in History" [0].

[0] https://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1898/xx/individua...