Père-Lachaise - Division 76 - Lafargue 01

Jean-Laurent-Frederick Longuet (5 October 1876 – 11 September 1938) was a French socialist politician and journalist. He was

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

's grandson.

Early years

Jean, often called 'Johnny' as a boy by his family, was born in London on October 5, 1876, the son of Charles and

Jenny Longuet Jenny Caroline Marx Longuet (1 May 1844 – 11 January 1883) was the eldest daughter of Jenny von Westphalen Marx and Karl Marx. Briefly a political journalist writing under the pen name J. Williams, Longuet taught language classes and had ...

. He was their second son, and the eldest who survived to adulthood. The family often visited Jenny's father, Karl Marx, who liked to play with his grandchildren. The Longuet family moved to France in February 1881. In summer 1882 Karl Marx stayed with the Longuets for three months, being joined by Jean's aunt

Eleanor Marx Jenny Julia Eleanor Marx (16 January 1855 – 31 March 1898), sometimes called Eleanor Aveling and known to her family as Tussy, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a socialist activist who sometimes worked as a ...

. By this time Jenny was suffering from

bladder cancer Bladder cancer is any of several types of cancer arising from the tissues of the urinary bladder. Symptoms include blood in the urine, pain with urination, and low back pain. It is caused when epithelial cells that line the bladder become ma ...

, and would die a year later. To ease the burden on the family, Eleanor took Jean back to England in August 1882, promising to educate and discipline him. They became close, with Eleanor thinking of him as ‘my boy’. On his return to France, Jean lived for a time with his father's family in Caen to continue his studies.

Political career

After attending university in Paris, Longuet worked as a journalist and trained as a lawyer. He worked for the newspaper ''

L'Humanité ''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist." History and profile Pre-World Wa ...

'' and was a founder and editor of the newspaper ''

Le Populaire ''Le Populaire'' is a major independent daily newspaper in Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ...

''. He was active in one of France's principal socialist parties, the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), and served both as a mayor and as a member of the French Chamber of Deputies. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he was a pacifist but also supported war credits. At the Strasbourg Congress in 1918 his policy was adopted by the majority of the socialist SFIO. After the

Tours Congress The Tours Congress was the 18th National Congress of the French Section of the Workers' International, or SFIO, which took place in Tours on 25–30 December 1920. During the Congress, the majority voted to join the Third International and create ...

of 1920 had the

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

gained the majority, he supported the minority and joined the

centrist Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to Left-w ...

Two-and-a-half International The International Working Union of Socialist Parties (IWUSP; also known as the 2½ International or the Vienna International; german: Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialistischer Parteien, IASP) was a political international for the co-opera ...

, the Vienna Union. He criticised the

League Against Imperialism The League against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression (french: Ligue contre l'impérialisme et l'oppression coloniale; german: Liga gegen Kolonialgreuel und Unterdrückung) was a transnational anti-imperialist organization in the interwar period. ...

, which was created in 1927 and supported by the Comintern. Longuet supported pro-

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

positions at the

Socialist International The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism. It consists mostly of socialist and labour-oriented political parties and organisations ...

meeting in Brussels in 1930 and at a speech to a Zionist group in Paris in 1935. He also represented

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (), Marathi pronunciation: �inaːjək saːʋəɾkəɾ also commonly known as Veer Savarkar (28 May 1883 – 26 February 1966), was an Indian politician, activist, and writer. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationali ...

, a political prisoner, who while being taken from Bombay to England to stand trial on the charges of sedition and abetment of murder, escaped from the ship, which was docked at

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

s, and swam ashore until he was caught by a French

gendarme Wrong info! --> A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (literally, ...

. The case drew criticism from the French socialist press, which decried that the individual rights of Savarkar had been trampled as a result of his arrest by British constables on French soil, which they believed to violate the sovereignty of France. Pressure from the leftist and liberal press continued and forced both countries in October 1910 to take their case to the

Permanent Court of Arbitration The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) is a non-UN intergovernmental organization located in The Hague, Netherlands. Unlike a judicial court in the traditional sense, the PCA provides services of arbitral tribunal to resolve disputes that aris ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

Madam Cama Bhikaiji Rustom CamaBhi''ai''- (with aspirated ''-kh-'') is the name as it appears in the biographies. Another common form is Bhi''ai''- (with unaspirated ''-k-''), as it appears on the postage stamp. The name is also frequently misspelled 'Bhi ...

, a revolutionary Parsi woman from Bombay who was one of the founders of the Paris Indian Society, managed to get power of attorney, which facilitated the engagement of Longuet as Savarkar's representative in The Hague. However, as the arbitration was between France and Britain, the tribunal did not accept Longuet's memorandum on behalf of Savarkar, considering it out of the terms of reference. However, Longuet persisted and personally handed over the copies of the memorandum to the members of the court.

Death and family

Jean Longuet married Anita Desvaux (1875–1960) in 1900. They had two sons: the lawyer and journalist Robert-Jean Longuet (1901–1987) and the sculptor Karl-Jean Longuet (1904–1981). Jean's younger brother Edgar Longuet, a physician, was also an active socialist. Longuet died at the Aix-les-Bains Clinic after a car accident in September 1938, aged 61. He was buried at the

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figure ...

in Paris, in the same grave as his aunt and uncle, Laura and

Paul Lafargue Paul Lafargue (; 15 January 1842 – 25 November 1911) was a Cuban- Haitian revolutionary Marxist socialist, political writer, economist, journalist, literary critic, and activist; he was Karl Marx's son-in-law having married his second dau ...

. Longuet's wife and two sons were later buried in the same grave.

References

External links

The Longuet Archive
(Marxist Internet Archive) {{DEFAULTSORT:Longuet, Jean 1876 births 1938 deaths Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery French people of German-Jewish descent French socialists Jewish socialists Members of the Executive of the Labour and Socialist International French Zionists Jewish French politicians 19th-century French Jews 20th-century French Jews Members of the 15th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 11th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Road incident deaths in France