Comrades! Cast your eyes upon the latest proclamations from the Astrakhan region, and you shall behold a spectacle of most wretched proportions. The local authorities, acting not as guardians of the people but as lackeys to the great monopolies, have seen fit to impose a draconian schedule upon the filling stations, limiting the sale of fuel to a mere forty litres per carriage.

Observe the cunning of the capitalist! The Governor, one Igor Babushkin, declares these measures necessary to 'stabilize' the reserves. Yet, look closer at the source of this 'wisdom.' These restrictions were proposed by the likes of Lukoil and Gazprom—the very behemoths of the oil monopoly whose sole purpose is the exploitation of the proletariat for the enrichment of a few fat cats in high parlours.

The Governor speaks of a 'negligible' difference in supply and demand, not exceeding ten per cent. I ask you: why then the panic? Why the sudden curtailment of liberty? It is a classic gambit of the bourgeoisie—to create a perceived scarcity, to sow chaos among the toiling masses, and thus maintain a stranglehold over the distribution of a vital resource.

And the contagion of this greed spreads! In the Lipetsk region, we see the return of the absurd 'odd-even' system, with limits further slashed to thirty litres. In Nizhny Novgorod, the state has deployed volunteers and the constabulary to police the pumps, ensuring that the working man does not dare to seek more fuel than the masters allow.

Is this not the very essence of the capitalist yoke? The fuel-realising system is not 'unbalanced'—it is perfectly balanced in favour of the moneylenders and the industrial lords, while the labourer is left to wither in the dust of the road, starved of the means to move, under the watchful eye of the law.