Back to Marx - ac-tu-al-ly is a noun.

Soviet's poster for the International Women’s Day
Year 1935 (?)

Listen,
The Marxist tradition can be kept alive as an essential political component of the Left.
Marxist crisis theory can show how a rejuvenated notion of exploitation can illuminate the analysis of the class structure of welfare state capitalism or the assessment of international migration.
Philippe van Parijs has convictionded about that.
The structure and potential of historical materialism as a general theory of social change.
They explore and advocate a ‘capitalist road to communism’ that expands the realm of freedom while bypassing socialism, and they develop those aspects of the Marxist project consistent with ecological concerns.

However the last idea brings us back to Steven Lukes’s question:
Can a Marxist believe in Human Rights?’

If a ’Marxist’ is someone who follows the Marxist text with literalist fervour, the answer undoubtedly remains ’no’. 

If, however, a Marxist is someone who – albeit recognizing that Marxist theories are

shot through with errors of detail, even have basic conceptual flaws, yet remain immensely fertile in their overall conception

simply can trace the ancestry of his most important beliefs back to Marx.
Te answer then becomes: ’Yes, she can. And in fact, she should’. This moreover, is what S. Lukes himself means when he asks whether the Marxist conception of liberty can really be achieved without elaborating a true theory of justice and rights in its support.
Lukes, Steven, 1985:  page 149. Marxism and Morality, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

In point of fact Marx saw that humans make both their life activity and 'species' the object of their will. They relate to their life activity, and are not simply identical with it. But Human, according to Marx, are capable of making or shaping their own nature to some extent.