Marx, Jenny

(maiden name, von Westphalen). Born Feb. 12, 1814, in Salzwedel; died Dec. 2, 1881, in London. Wife, friend, and comrade of Karl Marx.

Jenny von Westphalen broke with the aristocratic milieu in which she was born and married Marx in 1843. She served as his secretary, making copies of his manuscripts for publication and corresponding with a number of leading figures in the international working-class movement. She staunchly and courageously bore the persecution to which the Marx family was subjected and all the calamities of life in exile, which contributed to the deaths of four of her children. For 40 years Jenny Marx “not only shared the fortune, labors, and struggle of her husband but took part in them with the fullest understanding and the most glowing enthusiasm” (F. Engels, in K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 19, p. 300).

(married name, Longuet). Born May 1, 1844, in Paris; died Jan. 11, 1883, in Argenteuil. Active in the international socialist movement. Eldest daughter of Karl Marx; married C. Longuet in 1872.

Jenny Marx carried out various assignments in connection with her father’s scientific work and leadership of the First International. In 1869-70 she took an active part in the campaign in support of the national liberation movement of the Irish people and published articles in the French newspaper Marseillaise defending the Fenians, Irish revolutionaries. After the fall of the Paris Commune of 1871, she provided generous assistance to the Communards in exile. In 1872 she helped Marx prepare the French translation of the first volume of Das Kapital. When the Communards were granted amnesty in 1880, C. Longuet moved from London to France, followed by Jenny and their family in 1881. In his obituary “Jenny Longuet, nee Marx” Engels wrote that with her death “the proletariat lost a heroic fighter” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 19, p. 347).