Live at 7.30pm, 24 November 2026
Join How To Academy at The Salon as journalist and author Paul Mason tells the story of global communism, from its first barricades to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
This In Conversation event asks how a movement built on the hopes of millions of working people ended in repression and mass murder, and why its legacy still shapes Russia and China today.
Paul argues that the story is not over. Western democracies have stalled, climate breakdown demands radical economic answers, and China’s authoritarian, state-led model of development appeals to millions across the global south. He is the author of REDS.
How To Academy runs public talks, debates and conferences in London with some of the world’s most influential writers, scientists and thinkers, from Yuval Noah Harari to Natalie Portman. In November 2025 it brought Slavoj Žižek to Town Hall by Bottaccio twice in one weekend, first with philosopher of physics Emily Adlam and then in conversation with Alex O’Connor. This autumn it returns with a run of evening talks in The Salon, from Dr Kevin Fong in October to Timothy Garton Ash and Paul Mason in November.
This event takes place in the Salon, home to The Light Eaters until 20 December 2026. Co-curated by Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, Co-Founder of DoubleMoon, and Virginia Damtsa, Director of Arts at Town Hall by Bottaccio, the exhibition traces a lineage of artists who, since the 1960s, have used light to alter the mind, from Brion Gysin, Liliane Lijn, Amanda Feilding and James Turrell to Loie Hollowell, Leo Villareal, Tomás Saraceno and Trevor Paglen.
The Light Eaters is presented by DoubleMoon in collaboration with Town Hall by Bottaccio.
