Political emancipation, the right of resistance, and human rights in Robespierre and Marx

The article analyzes Marx's critique of the theme of human rights, based on his writings concerning the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. Marx and Robespierre are confronted within the context of this analysis. After demonstrating the identity between the two concepts of freedom expounded by Robespierre and Marx and between the concept of resistance to oppression in Robespierre and that of political emancipation in Marx, the article concludes by contending the impossibility and inadequacy of recourse to Marx in the contemporary defense of human rights and their universalization.