Four days after his death, his old friend and comrade Victor Serge read of the event in a newspaper in Mexico, where he was living in exile, and wrote several thoughtful pages in his journal describing the life and difficult choices of this complex man. Engaging in what he called "practical psychology", Serge tried to imagine how a former communist could become a fascist: "Among some Italians, particularly among the ex-Marxists and ex-syndicalists, two visions became apparent: that with the liberal democracies exhausted and socialism weakened, the corporatist regimes were going to impose their new formulas; and that through this narrow gate would pass collectivism, the precondition for a socialism different from that desired by the nineteenth century, ... corresponding better to man's basic nature." [10]