The second half of the 19th century changed Germany dramatically. Following the 1848 revolution, restrictive press laws were eased and liberal movements born. The government under Bismarck reacted by introducing strict anti-Socialist laws that were tantamount to a complete ban that lasted from 1878 to 1890. Social Democratic publishing was forced to move abroad to Brussels and London, etc., thereby boosting the Marxist wing in London that smuggled works back into Germany. Translation thus became a factor in the political orientation of the party and ultimately its survival. Under censorship, both the German censors and the Social Democrats living in London, duplicating the roles of agents of transfer, translated, circulated and censored texts that disseminated Social Democratic ideas. The ban also changed the mode of reading: the contraband was read as cultural texts establishing group identity, which heightened their effect. In the final analysis, the Social Democratic movement profited from the ban with translation playing no small role in the movement’s success.