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Outstanding issues begin t o be addressed

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Outstanding issues begin t o be addressed

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Speaking in the House of Lords, Home Office Minister Baroness Williams said "On an experimental basis we will ask police forces to record and identify any crimes of violence against the person including stalking and harassment, and sexual offences where the victim perceives it to have been motivated by a hostility based on their sex".

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Police to record crimes motivated by sex or gender on 'experimental basis'

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Speaking in the House of Lords, Home Office Minister Baroness Williams said "On an experimental basis we will ask police forces to record and identify any crimes of violence against the person including stalking and harassment, and sexual offences where the victim perceives it to have been motivated by a hostility based on their sex".

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Website for Heywood text with very useful articles 

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Website for Heywood text with very useful articles 

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All the latest breaking news on Liberalism. Browse The Independent's complete collection of articles and commentary on Liberalism.

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Nice summary of classical and modern liberalism. Useful for revision/overview.

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School Lecture - Liberalism | The Political Studies Association (PSA)

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School Lecture - Liberalism | The Political Studies Association (PSA)

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PSA School members can access Dr Oliver Harrison's lecture on Liberalism by clicking the image above.

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What does it take to be a woman who could sit in office in the White House?

One hundred years almost to the day since American women were granted the right to vote, that question remains yet unanswered.

But on Wednesday, Kamala Harris, the California senator who has been named as the Democrats' 2020 vice-presidential candidate, will take a step closer to answering it.

Should Democrats win in November, she will be a heartbeat away from the presidency - the nearest any woman has yet come to the office.

As Ms Harris becomes only the fourth woman on a major US presidential campaign ticket, she will be faced with navigating the complexities of race and gender in her historic nomination.

Here is how the three other women who have been on a major party ticket - and one pioneering black female candidate who preceded them - addressed what it meant to aim for the mark.

Shirley Chisholm 1972

"I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman... I am the candidate of the people of America". - announcing her candidacy on the steps of the Brooklyn Concord Baptist Church

The first black woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination was also the first black woman to serve in US Congress, elected to office in 1968 amid a year of racial tension that gripped the country.

She was the only woman to win that year.

By 1972, when the representative from Brooklyn mounted her unlikely campaign in hopes of becoming the Democratic nominee to take on Richard Nixon, the country was in the midst of a vexed debate over ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), aimed at levelling legal rights regardless of sex.

Variously described as "A revolutionary, a matriarch and a pest," Chisholm said that being a woman had been a "bigger drawback" for her than being black.

So it took no small amount of gumption and self-assurance to run for the highest US political office in such a political climate, but Chisholm was known to have had these in spades.

A former aide, Robert Gottlieb, told Smithsonian magazine: "She was unafraid of anybody. Her slogan was 'unbought and unbossed.' She was really unbossed."

When it came to the business of politics, she was more pragmatic. Though she was a fierce promoter of women and black Americans, and focused her primary campaign in states where there was support for women's rights and racial equality, she insisted that her appeal was broader.

Besides supporting the ERA, her platform included getting the US out of South East Asia and increasing minimum wage. "In the end, anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism," she wrote in a memoir. Though always a long-shot bid, she made it all the way to the Democratic nominating convention and got over 150 delegate votes.

Geraldine Ferraro 1984

"By choosing a woman to run for our nation's second highest office, you sent a powerful signal to all Americans. There are no doors we cannot unlock." - DNC nomination speech

The only other female Democrat other than Ms Harris to be chosen as a vice-presidential candidate, Ferraro was also the daughter of immigrants and a former prosecutor.

She acknowledged with unusual candour that her selection as Walter Mondale's running mate was made because she was a woman.

"There's no way any presidential candidate is going to choose a woman as a running mate unless he's 15 points behind in the polls" she admitted to a women's caucus group upon her selection.

Borrowing from John F Kennedy, she declared in her nomination speech that a Mondale-Ferraro administration would pass the Equal Rights Amendment, because "the issue is not what America can do for women, but what women can do for America".

As a campaigner, she was known for her steeliness. When negative reports regarding her family's finances came into light amid the campaign, she put on an expert show in crisis management by holding a marathon press conference to address questions from some 250 reporters present.

The upshot was an apology from George Will, a conservative columnist who had written unfavourably about her. The Washington Post dug up his card, which read: "Has anyone told you you are cute when you're mad?" - to which she reportedly replied "vice-presidents aren't cute".

More on women in politics

Sarah Palin 2008

"I was just your average hockey mom... You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick." - RNC nomination speech

The former governor of Alaska was a surprise pick for John McCain's ticket in 2008, but the Republican senator hoped that her reputation as a fierce and folksy conservative woman would appeal to that swathe of the electorate.

As the first female Republican vice-presidential candidate, Mrs Palin deployed a different kind of feminine political appeal - not so much a beacon of the progress of women in public life, but a totem of the strength of conservative values.

Her opposite in the 2008 election was Joe Biden, but in preparing to face-off in their vice-presidential debate, it was said to be the Democrat who was more conscientious of gender. Contemporary news stories reported that Mr Biden took pains to practice with female stand-ins for Mrs Palin to tackle the challenge of "taking on the Alaska governor without coming across as sexist or a bully".

On the campaign trail, she spoke frequently of being a wife and mother but was less inclined to draw direct attention to her status as a possible future female vice-president, saying only that "to have been chosen brings a great challenge".

However, she congratulated Ms Harris when it was announced that the senator would be on the 2020 Democratic ticket, writing: "Climb upon Geraldine Ferraro's and my shoulders, and from the most amazing view in your life consider lessons we learned".

Her advice included that Ms Harris should "trust no one new" and take care not to be muzzled.

Hillary Clinton 2008, 2016

"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time" - 2008 primary speech conceding to nominee Barak Obama.

"Tonight, we've reached a milestone in our nation's march toward a more perfect union: the first time that a major party has nominated a woman for President. Standing here as my mother's daughter, and my daughter's mother, I'm so happy this day has come." - 2016 DNC nomination speech

Yards of ink have been spilt to dissect the role that gender played in Mrs Clinton's two campaigns for the White House. In 2008, she lost a hard-fought primary to Barack Obama and in 2016 was defeated by Donald Trump in the general election, despite winning the popular vote.

The question of Mrs Clinton's "likeability", which many critics saw as a coded sexist judgement, was first raised in 2008, with even Mr Obama quipping at one point: "you're likeable enough, Hillary".

But it was in 2016 that sexism aimed at Mrs Clinton was nakedly on display. Sexist slurs appeared as slogans on merchandise sold at Trump rallies.

In the aftermath of the election, political scientists and Mrs Clinton herself agreed that sexism played a part in sinking her candidacy.

She reflected that part of the difficulty was that "there weren't any role models for me to compete twice for the presidency, to be the only woman on the stage... I was making it up as I went. I couldn't go, 'Oh, well, how did so-and-so do it?'"

Yet the divisive reaction to Mrs Clinton's most recent run notwithstanding, her campaign coincided with the notion that so-called "women's issues" are relevant not just to liberal female voters, but the broader electorate.

Agenda items like affordable childcare and parental leave were on the Republican radar, too, and although Mrs Clinton did not win the White House, a ceiling of sorts has arguably been shattered in the manner in which the economic, health and social treatment of women are considered mainstream parts of policymaking.

As for a woman winning a place in the West Wing in 2020, even that may not be at the top of Mrs Clinton's political wishlist. As she told the filmmaker Nanette Burnstein earlier this year, there is a "life-or-death political struggle here" and life this election means "somebody who can beat Trump" in the electoral college. "Everything else is a sideshow."

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What does it take to be a woman who could sit in office in the White House? One hundred years almost to the day since American women were granted the right to vote, that question remains yet unanswered.

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One-nation Conservatism

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At the end of July, a group of 100 Tory MPs relaunched the One Nation group, in part hoping to reel Boris Johnson back from the far right of the party.

Jonathan Freedland speaks to Damian Green, a former Cabinet Office minister under Theresa May, about why he wants to bring Johnson back to the centre of the Conservative party, his regrets from his time in the Home Office, and why it would have been better to have a Brexiter in No 10 in 2016.

The Guardian is editorially independent. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work.

Support The Guardian

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Damian Green on the PM and one-nation Toryism: Politics Weekly podcast

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At the end of July, a group of 100 Tory MPs relaunched the One Nation group, in part hoping to reel Boris Johnson back from the far right of the party.

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The political philosopher Edmund Burke shaped the UK politics of today, said his biographer who is also a Conservative MP.

Jesse Norman claimed Burke wrote the "text book for what a really good MP should be" and claimed that without him "we could not understand modern politics at all".

The MP spoke to Giles Dilnot for a film in the My Favourite Political Thinker series on the Daily Politics
Burke Images are from the National Portrait Gallery
More from the Daily and Sunday Politics: Watch full programmes from the last seven days via BBC iPlayer; 'like' us on Facebook page or 'follow' us on Twitter

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The political philosopher Edmund Burke shaped the UK politics of today, said his biographer who is also a Conservative MP. Jesse Norman claimed Burke wrote the "text book for what a really good MP should be" and claimed that without him "we could not understand modern politics at all".

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Karissa Sanbonmatsu: The biology of gender, from DNA to the brain

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How exactly does gender work? It's not just about our chromosomes, says biologist Karissa Sanbonmatsu. In a visionary talk, she shares new discoveries from epigenetics, the emerging study of how DNA activity can permanently change based on social factors like trauma or diet.

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A writer, performer and film maker on being queer and Arab in contemporary Britain.

In a personal film for Politics Live, Amrou Al-Kadhi, also known as Glamrou, talks about the politics of gender and why identity politics is nothing to be afraid of.
UK viewers can watch the full programme for 30 days from transmission

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A writer, performer and film maker on being queer and Arab in contemporary Britain. In a personal film for Politics Live, Amrou Al-Kadhi, also known as Glamrou, talks about the politics of gender and why identity politics is nothing to be afraid of.

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I'm no fan of Lenin, but he spent a good deal of time in London, so must be included in this series. I haven't chosen this mugshot as an expression of my disapproval - it's just that most of the photos that are available were taken after the revolution, and this one is the closest I could find in date to his first, and longest, visit to London. No doubt posing for portraits was not really a priority for an underground revolutionary.

But if pictures are scarce, source material on Lenin's connections with London isn't a problem, at least in terms of its availability. The difficulties lie elsewhere. Obviously no sort of history involves the unambiguous recitation of 'the facts', but works about Lenin bear greater resemblance to hagiography than history, and Krupskaya receives much the same treatment. When I read that 'one is amazed by her rich memory, expressive style and accuracy ... Grief and the pain of her loss sharpened Krupskaya's memory, and those first years of revolutionary work and life together seemed as clear as yesterday' (Muravyova, p. 21), I truly wondered whether I had read the same Reminiscences of Lenin as the authors of Lenin in London (and whatever the inadequacies and inaccuracies of the latter work, it is the main source on this topic, so all page references given are to this book, unless otherwise stated). The excesses of Bolshevik-speak occasionally provide amusement, as when they quote M. Essen on Lenin in Switzerland: 'He climbs up a wonderful mountain, yet he isn't thinking about the mountain at all, but about the Mensheviks' (p. 106), but generally it's just turgid. There's also the need to read between the lines, particularly where Stalin and Trotsky are concerned, because of the re-writing of Soviet history. Despite these problems, I've used a number of Soviet sources, as a) many of them are available on the net, and many of these are contemporary(-ish), and b) Western sources, having other axes to grind, are generally less concerned with the details of location that interest me. Helen Rappaport's recent book Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, tells a good story, but [comment withdrawn] has a rather relaxed approach to citing sources, which makes it extremely difficult to check some of the claims she makes.

Lenin and Krupskaya left Germany because of increased persecution by the police, and arrived in London in mid-April 1902 to transfer the publication of Iskra, the newspaper of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). They were met at Charing Cross station by a fellow exile, Nikolai Alekseev, and used his address (14 Frederick Street, off Gray's Inn Road) for correspondence at first, before finding accommodation 'two steps' from there, according to a letter from Lenin to Plekhanov (p. 19), at 30 Holford Square, Pentonville. The house is no longer there, and the block of flats that was built in its place, planned in the early 1940s, was originally going to be called Lenin Court. By the time it was completed a decade later, enthusiasm for things Soviet had waned, to say the least, and it was called Bevin Court instead. You can read more about it in this BBC article.

The Ulyanovs spent just over a year in London, living in Holford Square under the name of Richter and upsetting the bourgeois landlady Mrs Emma Yeo with their bohemian behaviour, which apparently included hanging curtains on a Sunday (p. 23). It is worth noting that Lenin always stayed around the fairly salubrious environs of Bloomsbury and Pentonville. His excuse was proximity to the British Museum, but am I alone in suspecting that he wasn't actually that keen on rubbing shoulders with the proletariat, at least not on a regular basis?

At first there were practical difficulties, not least with language. Lenin and Krupskaya had translated Beatrice and Sidney Webb's Industrial Democracy whilst in Siberia, but neither had any real experience of spoken English. The Takhtarevs - Konstantin, the former editor of Rabochaia mysl', and his wife Apollinaria Iakubova from the St Petersburg group, living nearby at 20 Regent Square (only nos. 1-18 of the original houses are still standing) - took Lenin and Krupskaya under their wings and helped them in this respect, despite ideological differences. In May 1902 Lenin advertised in the Atheneum journal and was soon exchanging lessons with a Mr Raymond (or Rayment, according to Rappaport, p. 77), who worked for the publisher George Bell & Sons, a clerk, Mr Williams, and a worker named Mr Young (no relation) (p. 35). Predictably, Lenin in London informs us that the speed with which our hero mastered spoken English was nothing short of miraculous.

Lenin spent the mornings working at the Reading Room at the British Museum (and was highly impressed with 'the world's richest library', as Krupskaya called it, but not by the museum). His ticket number was A72453. He then conducted Iskra business on the way home (continuing the tradition of Russian radical publishing in London).

The offices of Iskra were at 37a Clerkenwell Green (now the Marx Memorial Library) - Harry Quelch, the editor of the British Social Democrat weekly, Justice, made their printing press available, with Iskra just having to provide its own typesetters (p. 40). Numerous addresses where Iskra workers and other activists and sympathizers lived were used for correspondence. These included: the flat of L. Deutsch, narodnik, Social Democrat and member of the Emancipation of Labour group, at 26 Granville Square, off King's Cross Road (p. 48); 22 Ampton Street, off Gray's Inn Road, the new address of Nikolai Alekseev from October 1902; the flats of British Social Democrats A. Hazell, at 85 Avenell Road, Highbury, V. C. Clews, at 62 Mildmay Grove (near Newington Green), and W. Woodroffe, at some distance from the others at 26 Barset Road, Nunhead (not 'Barsett Road, Nanhead', as Lenin in London has it, pp. 76-80).

In addition, the Iskra editorial board rented a 5-room flat in Sidmouth Street, again just off Gray's Inn Road, and this became a commune. Most of the sources I have read do not record the house number (Rappoport gives it as no. 14, p. 74), and in any case only three of the original houses survive. Julius Martov and Vera Zasulich (the latter had previous lived in London between 1894 and 1897 and, like Lenin, had made great use of the British Library; Bergman, p. 106) lived there in absolute squalor, by all accounts, and it was frequented by many visiting Russians, such as Plekhanov in September 1902 (p. 85) and, in the same month, a group of Social Democrats who had escaped from Lukyanovo prison in Kiev, including Maxim Litvinov (p. 91), future Soviet ambassador to the United States. Trotsky also visited when he arrived in October 1902; Lenin in London omits to mention this visit, but, perhaps surprisingly, given that it was written in 1933, Krupskaya does. Lenin also gave a number of speeches, including one on 'the programmes and tactics of the Socialist-Revolutionaries' at Liberty Hall, Whitechapel, on 29 November 1902 (p. 184), and on 21 March 1903 he spoke at a meeting to commemorate the anniversary of the Paris Commune at the New Alexandra Hall, Jubilee Street, Mile End. Louise Michel was another of the speakers (p. 185).

But all work and no play makes Volodya a dull revolutionary, and we learn that in between his extraordinary feats of intellectual labour and tireless activities for the revolutionary cause, Lenin enjoyed exploring London. He particularly liked walking in Primrose Hill and visiting Regent's Park zoo (pp. 102-4), but many of his leisure activities do seem to have been connected with his work: he regularly attended Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park to listen to speeches, and visited socialist churches, including Seven Sisters' Church on Seven Sisters' Road (pp. 94-7). As Krupskaya tells us:

Ilyich studied living London. He liked taking long rides through the town on top of the bus. He liked the busy traffic of that vast commercial city, the quiet squares with their elegant houses wreathed in greenery, where only smart broughams drew up. There were other places too - mean little streets tenanted by London's work people, with clothes lines stretched across the road and anaemic children playing on the doorsteps. To these places we used to go on foot. Observing these startling contrasts between wealth and poverty, Ilyich would mutter in English through clenched teeth: "Two nations!"

In May 1903, following a decision by the Iskra board to move to Geneva, which Lenin alone opposed, the Ulyanovs left London. But they returned soon afterwards, when the 2nd congress of the RSDLP was forced to move from Brussels because of police persecution, and reconvened in London, under the guise of an Anglers' club, according to Alan Woods. The first session was held on 11 August 1903 (29 July o.s.) at the Communist Club at 107 Charlotte Street. The building that now stands there houses UCL student residences. For more on the history of the club, see Keith Scholey's pamphlet. There don't appear to be any records on where subsequent sessions were held.

The usual suspects were present: Trotsky, Plekhanov, Zasulich, Martov, Axelrod... According to tradition this was the congress at which the Russian Social Democrats split into the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, but in fact it was not at this stage a definitive rift. Few of the Soviet sources in any case give much detail on the substance of the differences. Most seem more interested in who was in which faction and what those factions were called than in the ideological differences between them - the description in the Short Course History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) is pretty typical in this respect. I suppose the idea is that the correct line (i.e. Lenin's line) is beyond question and therefore doesn't even need stating. If you are interested in some of the nitty-gritty, Lenin's speeches are probably the best source, and Alan Woods gives an account that is very sympathetic to Lenin, but reasonably straightforward. After the congress, probably on 24 August 1903, Lenin led a group of Bolsheviks to Highgate Cemetery to visit the grave of Karl Marx (p. 141).

Two years later, in the wake of the 1905 revolution, the third RSDLP congress - the first Bolshevik congress - was held in London, from 12 April to 10 May 1905. There were between 40 and 50 delegates representing the various Bolshevik committees and the central committee (p. 150), including Lunacharsky and Bogdanov ( Woods). Lenin, who chaired the congress, and Krupskaya, stayed around the corner from their old Holford Square Flat, at 16 Percy Circus, now marked with a blue plaque. There were also delegates staying at 9 and 23 Percy Circus (p. 149). I have not come across any details about where the sessions of the congress were held.

Lenin in London does have details of some of the extra-curricular activities: visits to the National Gallery and the theatre, the zoo and the Natural History Museum, the British Library and Highgate Cemetery, and also to a pub on Gray's Inn Road, the Pindar of Wakefield (the book has 'Pindor of Walkfield', p. 149 - here and elsewhere, the translator obviously didn't do much in the way of checking the spelling of English place names), which Lenin apparently frequented when he lived in the area. It's now called The Water Rats, and is a well known music venue, notable, among other things, for hosting Bob Dylan's first British gig in 1962. Another pub Lenin was known to visit with his comrades, and possibly one of the venues used for the congress, was the Crown and Woolpack, St John's Street, Clerkenwell, now The Chapel hairdressing salon.

A third social venue, the Crown Tavern on Clerkenwell Green, proudly flaunts its reputation as the pub in which Lenin met Stalin for the first time at the 1905 congress, and the story is repeated in the BBC report on Lenin's London haunts. Alas, this is a myth. Lenin may well have drunk in the pub during that congress or at other times, and possibly had a pint with Stalin at a later date (although the evidence doesn't support this either), but Stalin most definitely wasn't at the 1905 congress. Even the sycophantic Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute biography of Stalin, which tries its best to affiliate Stalin to Lenin's victories and decisions from the earliest possible stage, doesn't manage to place him at the scene, and states that the two men first met at the Bolshevik congress in Finland in December 1905-January 1906.

Stalin was, however, in London for the 5th RSDLP congress in 1907, but where he stayed is a source of some confusion. According to most sources, he lodged at Tower House, Fieldgate Street, Whitechapel (then a notorious doss house, now an improbably smart refurbished block advertising loft-style apartments to let). This article by Robert Service from the Evening Standard claims Stalin stayed at '77 Jubilee Road'. There is no such place in the East End and I assume he means Jubilee Street. Rappaport says that after surviving couple of nights in Fieldgate Street (she calls the building Rowton House), Stalin moved to the greater comforts of 'Jubilee Road' (p. 156).

The 1907 congress was a much bigger affair than the Bolshevik event of 1905, with over 300 delegates. I've seen different breakdowns. Lenin in London says there were 103 Bolsheviks, 97 Mensheviks, and others from the Social Democratic parties of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, and the Bund (pp. 165-6). Stalin claims there were 92 Bolsheviks and 85 Mensheviks. Woods has 89 Bolsheviks and 88 Mensheviks. According to Woods, the Menshevik delegates included Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod, Deutsch and Dan, and the Bolsheviks Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Nogin, Bogdanov, Tomsky and others. Trotsky was present as a non-factional delegate, and others present included Maxim Gorky and Rosa Luxemburg. Felix Dzerzhinsky was due to attend but was arrested en route. Stalin, apparently, 'had no voice in the proceedings as he had no credentials from any recognised party organisation in the Caucasus' (Woods, part 3). Unsurprisingly, the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute biography paints a somewhat different picture, saying that Stalin took an 'active part'.

The main congress was held from 13 May to 1 June (30 April-19 May o.s.) at the Brotherhood Church, on the corner of Southgate Road and Balmes Road, on the Islington/Hackney border. It's now been replaced by an unprepossessing block of flats. But there was also a Bolshevik congress held at a socialist club in Fulbourne Street, off Whitechapel Road on 10 May (p. 167), A BBC4 programme, Watching the Russians, followed the trail of Russian revolutionaries in London, and William Fishman states that the door on the far left of the picture below led to this club. On 3-7 June, the second congress of the Latvian Social Democrats was held at King's Hall, Commercial Road, Whitechapel (p. 172).

I have not come across any reference to where Lenin lodged during this visit, but Gorky, with whom he spent a good deal of time (they had only met once previously, but consolidated their friendship during the congress), stayed at the Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, and Lenin worried that the damp there would affect his health (pp. 176-7). In their spare time Lenin and Gorky visited the British Museum, and 'the delegates warmly remembered ... a discussion with Lenin on the grass in Hyde Park' (p. 179) - a slightly unexpected picture. There are also reports that Lenin was seen drinking tea at the workers' club at 165 Jubilee Street, Whitechapel, established by Rudolf Rocker's Jewish anarchist group and the newspaper Arbeter Fraint (Fishman, p. 264). As he was in the area for the satellite conferences, this seems not unlikely - the club was not exclusively used by anarchists - but I'm less sure about the story that he created a scene by accusing another person at the club of being a Russian police spy and was arrested in the subsequent disturbance (Graur, p. 99). I haven't found any other reference to Lenin being arrested in London. Other connections are made with the Jubilee Street Club by Rappaport. She says the inaugural meeting of the RSDLP congress was held there on 10 May (p. 156). This is not supported by other sources. The Whitechapel meeting was of the Bolshevik faction only, and the Fulbourne Street location seems much more likely. Her claim that Kropotkin was also there (introducing 'his friend' Lenin to a detective outside the club, p. 157), and indeed present at some of the main sessions of the congress, suggests a misunderstanding of the nature of the revolutionary movement. Nothing else I have read puts Kropotkin anywhere near the scene, and it seems highly improbable that he would have had any involvement with either the congress or Lenin.

In May 1908, Lenin returned to London to work in the British Library. He lodged at 21 Tavistock Place, near his old haunts of Sidmouth Street and Regent Square, and spent his time preparing materials for writing Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, which was published the following year. Lenin's final, brief, trip to London was in Autumn 1911. He stayed at 6 Oakley Square, near Mornington Crescent (p. 188), and gave a lecture on 'Stolypin and the Revolution' at the New King's Hall, Commercial Road, on 11 November (p. 193).
Sources
Jay Bergman, Vera Zasulich: A Biography (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983)
Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.), ed., History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks). Short Course (International Publishers, 1939)
William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875-1914 (London: Duckworth, 1975)
Mina Graur, An Anarchist 'Rabbi': The Life and Teachings of Rudolf Rocker (New York: St Martin's Press; Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1997)
N. K. Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin, trans. Bernard Isaacs (International Publishers, 1970)
Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1947)
L. Muravyova and L. Sivolap-Kaftanova, Lenin in London: Memorial Places, trans. Jane Sayer (Moscow: Progress, 1983)
Helen Rappaport, Conspirator: Lenin in Exile (New York: Perseus, 2010)
Keith Scholey, The Communist Club (London: Past Tense, 2006)
Alan Woods, Bolshevism: The Road to Revolution (London: Well Red Books,1999)

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I'm no fan of Lenin, but he spent a good deal of time in London, so must be included in this series. I haven't chosen this mugshot as an expression of my disapproval - it's just that most of the photos that are available were taken after the revolution, and this one is the closest I could find in date to his first, and longest, visit to London.

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hould scholars serve the truth, even at the cost of social harmony? Should you expose a fiction even if that fiction sustains the social order? In writing my latest book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, I had to struggle with this dilemma with regard to liberalism.

On the one hand, I believe that the liberal story is flawed, that it does not tell the truth about humanity, and that in order to survive and flourish in the 21st century we need to go beyond it. On the other hand, at present the liberal story is still fundamental to the functioning of the global order. What's more, liberalism is now attacked by religious and nationalist fanatics who believe in nostalgic fantasies that are far more dangerous and harmful.

So should I speak my mind openly, risking that my words could be taken out of context and used by demagogues and autocrats to further attack the liberal order? Or should I censor myself? It is a mark of illiberal regimes that they make free speech more difficult even outside their borders. Due to the spread of such regimes, it is becoming increasingly dangerous to think critically about the future of our species.

I eventually chose free discussion over self-censorship, thanks to my belief both in the strength of liberal democracy and in the necessity to revamp it. Liberalism's great advantage over other ideologies is that it is flexible and undogmatic. It can sustain criticism better than any other social order. Indeed, it is the only social order that allows people to question even its own foundations. Liberalism has already survived three big crises - the first world war, the fascist challenge in the 1930s, and the communist challenge in the 1950s-70s. If you think liberalism is in trouble now, just remember how much worse things were in 1918, 1938 or 1968.

The main challenge liberalism faces today comes not from fascism or communism but from the laboratories

In 1968, liberal democracies seemed to be an endangered species, and even within their own borders they were rocked by riots, assassinations, terrorist attacks and fierce ideological battles. If you happened to be amid the riots in Washington on the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated, or in Paris in May 1968, or at the Democratic party's convention in Chicago in August 1968, you might well have thought that the end was near. While Washington, Paris and Chicago were descending into chaos, Moscow and Leningrad were tranquil, and the Soviet system seemed destined to endure for ever. Yet 20 years later it was the Soviet system that collapsed. The clashes of the 1960s strengthened liberal democracy, while the stifling climate in the Soviet bloc presaged its demise.

So we hope liberalism can reinvent itself yet again. But the main challenge it faces today comes not from fascism or communism, and not even from the demagogues and autocrats that are spreading everywhere like frogs after the rains. This time the main challenge emerges from the laboratories.

Liberalism is founded on the belief in human liberty. Unlike rats and monkeys, human beings are supposed to have "free will". This is what makes human feelings and human choices the ultimate moral and political authority in the world. Liberalism tells us that the voter knows best, that the customer is always right, and that we should think for ourselves and follow our hearts.

nfortunately, "free will" isn't a scientific reality. It is a myth inherited from Christian theology. Theologians developed the idea of "free will" to explain why God is right to punish sinners for their bad choices and reward saints for their good choices. If our choices aren't made freely, why should God punish or reward us for them? According to the theologians, it is reasonable for God to do so, because our choices reflect the free will of our eternal souls, which are independent of all physical and biological constraints.

This myth has little to do with what science now teaches us about Homo sapiens and other animals. Humans certainly have a will - but it isn't free. You cannot decide what desires you have. You don't decide to be introvert or extrovert, easy-going or anxious, gay or straight. Humans make choices - but they are never independent choices. Every choice depends on a lot of biological, social and personal conditions that you cannot determine for yourself. I can choose what to eat, whom to marry and whom to vote for, but these choices are determined in part by my genes, my biochemistry, my gender, my family background, my national culture, etc - and I didn't choose which genes or family to have.

Hacked ... biometric sensors could allow corporations direct access to your inner world. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

This is not abstract theory. You can witness this easily. Just observe the next thought that pops up in your mind. Where did it come from? Did you freely choose to think it? Obviously not. If you carefully observe your own mind, you come to realise that you have little control of what's going on there, and you are not choosing freely what to think, what to feel, and what to want.

Though "free will" was always a myth, in previous centuries it was a helpful one. It emboldened people who had to fight against the Inquisition, the divine right of kings, the KGB and the KKK. The myth also carried few costs. In 1776 or 1945 there was relatively little harm in believing that your feelings and choices were the product of some "free will" rather than the result of biochemistry and neurology.

But now the belief in "free will" suddenly becomes dangerous. If governments and corporations succeed in hacking the human animal, the easiest people to manipulate will be those who believe in free will.

In order to successfully hack humans, you need two things: a good understanding of biology, and a lot of computing power. The Inquisition and the KGB lacked this knowledge and power. But soon, corporations and governments might have both, and once they can hack you, they can not only predict your choices, but also reengineer your feelings. To do so, corporations and governments will not need to know you perfectly. That is impossible. They will just have to know you a little better than you know yourself. And that is not impossible, because most people don't know themselves very well.

If you believe in the traditional liberal story, you will be tempted simply to dismiss this challenge. "No, it will never happen. Nobody will ever manage to hack the human spirit, because there is something there that goes far beyond genes, neurons and algorithms. Nobody could successfully predict and manipulate my choices, because my choices reflect my free will." Unfortunately, dismissing the challenge won't make it go away. It will just make you more vulnerable to it.

It starts with simple things. As you surf the internet, a headline catches your eye: "Immigrant gang rapes local women". You click on it. At exactly the same moment, your neighbour is surfing the internet too, and a different headline catches her eye: "Trump prepares nuclear strike on Iran". She clicks on it. Both headlines are fake news stories, generated perhaps by Russian trolls, or by a website keen on increasing traffic to boost its ad revenues. Both you and your neighbour feel that you clicked on these headlines out of your free will. But in fact you have been hacked.

If governments succeed in hacking the human animal, the easiest people to manipulate will be those who believe in free will

Propaganda and manipulation are nothing new, of course. But whereas in the past they worked like carpet bombing, now they are becoming precision-guided munitions. When Hitler gave a speech on the radio, he aimed at the lowest common denominator, because he couldn't tailor his message to the unique weaknesses of individual brains. Now it has become possible to do exactly that. An algorithm can tell that you already have a bias against immigrants, while your neighbour already dislikes Trump, which is why you see one headline while your neighbour sees an altogether different one. In recent years some of the smartest people in the world have worked on hacking the human brain in order to make you click on ads and sell you stuff. Now these methods are being used to sell you politicians and ideologies, too.

And this is just the beginning. At present, the hackers rely on analysing signals and actions in the outside world: the products you buy, the places you visit, the words you search for online. Yet within a few years biometric sensors could give hackers direct access to your inner world, and they could observe what's going on inside your heart. Not the metaphorical heart beloved by liberal fantasies, but rather the muscular pump that regulates your blood pressure and much of your brain activity. The hackers could then correlate your heart rate with your credit card data, and your blood pressure with your search history. What would the Inquisition and the KGB have done with biometric bracelets that constantly monitor your moods and affections? Stay tuned.

Liberalism has developed an impressive arsenal of arguments and institutions to defend individual freedoms against external attacks from oppressive governments and bigoted religions, but it is unprepared for a situation when individual freedom is subverted from within, and when the very concepts of "individual" and "freedom" no longer make much sense. In order to survive and prosper in the 21st century, we need to leave behind the naive view of humans as free individuals - a view inherited from Christian theology as much as from the modern Enlightenment - and come to terms with what humans really are: hackable animals. We need to know ourselves better.

Of course, this is hardly new advice. From ancient times, sages and saints repeatedly advised people to "know thyself". Yet in the days of Socrates, the Buddha and Confucius, you didn't have real competition. If you neglected to know yourself, you were still a black box to the rest of humanity. In contrast, you now have competition. As you read these lines, governments and corporations are striving to hack you. If they get to know you better than you know yourself, they can then sell you anything they want - be it a product or a politician.

It is particularly important to get to know your weaknesses. They are the main tools of those who try to hack you. Computers are hacked through pre-existing faulty code lines. Humans are hacked through pre-existing fears, hatreds, biases and cravings. Hackers cannot create fear or hatred out of nothing. But when they discover what people already fear and hate it is easy to push the relevant emotional buttons and provoke even greater fury.

If people cannot get to know themselves by their own efforts, perhaps the same technology the hackers use can be turned around and serve to protect us. Just as your computer has an antivirus program that screens for malware, maybe we need an antivirus for the brain. Your AI sidekick will learn by experience that you have a particular weakness - whether for funny cat videos or for infuriating Trump stories - and would block them on your behalf.

You feel that you clicked on these headlines out of your free will, but in fact you have been hacked. Photograph: Getty images

But all this is really just a side issue. If humans are hackable animals, and if our choices and opinions don't reflect our free will, what should the point of politics be? For 300 years, liberal ideals inspired a political project that aimed to give as many individuals as possible the ability to pursue their dreams and fulfil their desires. We are now closer than ever to realising this aim - but we are also closer than ever to realising that this has all been based on an illusion. The very same technologies that we have invented to help individuals pursue their dreams also make it possible to re-engineer those dreams. So how can I trust any of my dreams?

From one perspective, this discovery gives humans an entirely new kind of freedom. Previously, we identified very strongly with our desires, and sought the freedom to realise them. Whenever any thought appeared in the mind, we rushed to do its bidding. We spent our days running around like crazy, carried by a furious rollercoaster of thoughts, feelings and desires, which we mistakenly believed represented our free will. What happens if we stop identifying with this rollercoaster? What happens when we carefully observe the next thought that pops up in our mind and ask: "Where did that come from?"

For starters, realising that our thoughts and desires don't reflect our free will can help us become less obsessive about them. If I see myself as an entirely free agent, choosing my desires in complete independence from the world, it creates a barrier between me and all other entities. I don't really need any of those other entities - I am independent. It simultaneously bestows enormous importance on my every whim - after all, I chose this particular desire out of all possible desires in the universe. Once we give so much importance to our desires, we naturally try to control and shape the whole world according to them. We wage wars, cut down forests and unbalance the entire ecosystem in pursuit of our whims. But if we understood that our desires are not the outcome of free choice, we would hopefully be less preoccupied with them, and would also feel more connected to the rest of the world.

If we understood that our desires are not the outcome of free choice, we would hopefully be less preoccupied with them

People sometimes imagine that if we renounce our belief in "free will", we will become completely apathetic, and just curl up in some corner and starve to death. In fact, renouncing this illusion can have two opposite effects: first, it can create a far stronger link with the rest of the world, and make you more attentive to your environment and to the needs and wishes of others. It is like when you have a conversation with someone. If you focus on what you want to say, you hardly really listen. You just wait for the opportunity to give the other person a piece of your mind. But when you put your own thoughts aside, you can suddenly hear other people.

Second, renouncing the myth of free will can kindle a profound curiosity. If you strongly identify with the thoughts and desires that emerge in your mind, you don't need to make much effort to get to know yourself. You think you already know exactly who you are. But once you realise "Hi, this isn't me. This is just some changing biochemical phenomenon!" then you also realise you have no idea who - or what - you actually are. This can be the beginning of the most exciting journey of discovery any human can undertake.

here is nothing new about doubting free will or about exploring the true nature of humanity. We humans have had this discussion a thousand times before. But we never had the technology before. And the technology changes everything. Ancient problems of philosophy are now becoming practical problems of engineering and politics. And while philosophers are very patient people - they can argue about something inconclusively for 3,000 years - engineers are far less patient. Politicians are the least patient of all.

How does liberal democracy function in an era when governments and corporations can hack humans? What's left of the beliefs that "the voter knows best" and "the customer is always right"? How do you live when you realise that you are a hackable animal, that your heart might be a government agent, that your amygdala might be working for Putin, and that the next thought that emerges in your mind might well be the result of some algorithm that knows you better than you know yourself? These are the most interesting questions humanity now faces.

Unfortunately, these are not the questions most humans ask. Instead of exploring what awaits us beyond the illusion of "free will", people all over the world are now retreating to find shelter with even older illusions. Instead of confronting the challenge of AI and bioengineering, many are turning to religious and nationalist fantasies that are even less in touch with the scientific realities of our time than liberalism. Instead of fresh political models, what's on offer are repackaged leftovers from the 20th century or even the middle ages.

When you try to engage with these nostalgic fantasies, you find yourself debating such things as the veracity of the Bible and the sanctity of the nation (especially if you happen, like me, to live in a place like Israel). As a scholar, this is a disappointment. Arguing about the Bible was hot stuff in the age of Voltaire, and debating the merits of nationalism was cutting-edge philosophy a century ago - but in 2018 it seems a terrible waste of time. AI and bioengineering are about to change the course of evolution itself, and we have just a few decades to figure out what to do with them. I don't know where the answers will come from, but they are definitely not coming from a collection of stories written thousands of years ago.

So what to do? We need to fight on two fronts simultaneously. We should defend liberal democracy, not only because it has proved to be a more benign form of government than any of its alternatives, but also because it places the fewest limitations on debating the future of humanity. At the same time, we need to question the traditional assumptions of liberalism, and develop a new political project that is better in line with the scientific realities and technological powers of the 21st century.

Greek mythology tells that Zeus and Poseidon, two of the greatest gods, competed for the hand of the goddess Thetis. But when they heard the prophecy that Thetis would bear a son more powerful than his father, both withdrew in alarm. Since gods plan on sticking around for ever, they don't want a more powerful offspring to compete with them. So Thetis married a mortal, King Peleus, and gave birth to Achilles. Mortals do like their children to outshine them. This myth might teach us something important. Autocrats who plan to rule in perpetuity don't like to encourage the birth of ideas that might displace them. But liberal democracies inspire the creation of new visions, even at the price of questioning their own foundations *
* Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is published by Cape. To order a copy for £13.99, saving £5, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.

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Should scholars serve the truth, even at the cost of social harmony? Should you expose a fiction even if that fiction sustains the social order? In writing my latest book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, I had to struggle with this dilemma with regard to liberalism.

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