"Healthy in body and mind, I end my life before pitiless old age which has taken from me my pleasures and joys one after another; and which has been stripping me of my physical and mental powers, can paralyse my energy and break my will, making me a burden to myself and to others.
For some years I had promised myself not to live beyond 70; and I fixed the exact year for my departure from life. I prepared the method for the execution of our resolution, it was a hypodermic of cyanide acid.
I die with the supreme joy of knowing that at some future time, the cause to which I have been devoted for forty-five years will triumph.
Long live Communism! Long Live the international socialism!"
- Laura Marx and Paul Lafargue, joint suicide letter
"If one cannot work for the Party any longer, one must be able to look truth in the face and die like the Lafargues."
- Vladimir Lenin
YOU CAN DIE COLD, ALONE, SENILE, STINKING, NEGLECTED, TOOTHLESS, BEDBOUND, LIVER-SPOTTED, ACHING, UNABLE TO WIPE YOUR OWN ASS OR YOU CAN DIE WITH DIGNITY TRYING TO BRING ABOUT INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. WHAT'S A BULLET TO THE HEAD OR A FEW DAYS OF TORTURE AT THE HANDS OF REACTIONARIES VERSUS THE SUFFERING AND LONELINESS AND SENILITY AND HEARTBREAK OF OLD AGE?!?!?!