Even if humanity too must have a purpose beyond itself, that purpose will appear in so remote a future that for us, humanity may be considered as an absolute infinite. 'The rest is finite, and to work for the rest is therefore meaningless. 'More than 30 years ago I embraced the philosophy that human life has meaning only to the degree that, and so long as, it is lived in the service of something infinite. What struck me at the time was not so much the suicide itself but the human qualities on display, visible in the first few paragraphs: 'Dear Leon Davidovich: All my life I have thought that the man of politics ought to know how to go away at the right time, as an actor quits the stage, and that it is better to go too soon than too late. After completing it, Joffe, one of the most trusted of Soviet diplomats, put a pistol to his head and pressed the trigger. It was a suicide note dated 16 November 1927, and addressed to Leon Trotsky. The Last Words of Adolf Abramovich Joffe (published by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, Ceylon, 1950). It reminded me of a short pamphlet I had read over four decades ago. He was neither the first nor the last to depart in this fashion. 'To be true, simply true,' Stendhal once wrote, 'that is the only thing that matters.' For Magri, truth meant taking his own life. They tried to talk him out of it, but Magri was unmoved. A bankers' clique governed the country, with the staunch backing of an octogenarian, ex-communist president, the left intelligentsia had collapsed – so what was the point of living? Most of his friends were unconvinced, even angry. Italian communism and those on its left had committed political suicide.

The loss of his wife was the trigger, but there were other reasons. With The Tailor of Ulm completed and published, he decided to say farewell to life. His wife had died after a long illness two years earlier, and had discouraged Magri from following suit, insisting that he finish his book on the fate of Italian communism.

Parliament observed a minute's silence, newspaper comment was broadly sympathetic, but his closest friends were unhappy. For a few days most of Italy was in shock. A year and a half ago Lucio Magri, one of Italy's most respected leftwing intellectuals, flew to Switzerland, entered a clinic and drank the fatal hemlock in his case it meant swallowing a death pill.

Trotsky for Beginners by Tariq Ali