Marx to Arnold Ruge, 25 January 1843
(First page)

…wanted, the ministerial rescript now declares that the prohibition, the suppression, was invented in Frankfurt for a thoroughly bad tendency. The censorship, it is said, exists only to censor the excrescences of the good tendency, although the instruction had said precisely the opposite, namely that excrescences of the good tendency were to be permitted.

3) The old fiddle-faddle about bad disposition, hollow theory, fiddlesticks, etc.

Nothing has surprised me. You know what I straightaway thought of the censorship instruction. I see here only a consequence; I see in the suppression of the Rh. Z. a step forward in political consciousness, and therefore I resign myself to it. Besides, the atmosphere had become so oppressive to me. It is wretched to perform menial service, even for freedom, || and to fight with needles instead of cudgels. I have grown weary of the hypocrisy, the stupidity, the brutal authority, and our bending, bowing, back-turning, and hair-splitting. So the government has restored me to freedom.

I am, as I have already written to you once, at odds with my family, and as long as my mother lives I have no right to my property. I am furthermore engaged, and I cannot, may not, and will not leave Germany without my fiancée. So if it came about that I could edit the Deutsche Blätter with Herwegh in Zurich, that would suit me. In Germany I can no longer undertake anything. Here one falsifies oneself. Should you therefore wish to give me advice and information in this matter, I shall be very grateful.

I am working on several things which here in Germany can find existence neither with censor nor bookseller nor, generally, in any possible way. I await an answer from you as soon as possible.

Yours,
Marx

To Herr […]
in Dresden
free

Marx and Arnold Ruge, 25 January 1843. (Third page)