Comrades! Cast your gaze upon the latest antics of the haute bourgeoisie! Mr. Herman Gref, the high priest of the Sberbank temple, has seen fit to address the Central Bank with a most urgent petition. In the hallowed halls of the annual shareholders' meeting—that sanctuary of greed—this representative of the financial oligarchy declared that the key interest rate must be lowered.

"We have overcooled the economy," proclaims Gref, as if the economy were a mere tea-kettle and not the collective sweat and toil of the working classes! He laments that real rates have grown too high. Mark this well: when a banker speaks of 'overcooling,' he does not weep for the shivering proletarian in the slums, but for the sluggish growth of his own dividends!

Indeed, on the 19th of June, the Central Bank lowered the rate to 14.25% per annum—the ninth such reduction in succession. Yet, the vultures of capital are never sated; they already eye the July meeting of the board of directors with hungry anticipation.

They tell us that this rate is the principal instrument in the struggle against inflation, which stood at 5.6% as of the 15th of June. The regulators strive to tether the growth of prices to a mere 4% per annum. But let us strip away the mask! Whether the rate be high or low, the machinery of the monopoly remains the same: it is a system designed by the usurers to ensure that the yoke of debt remains firmly upon the neck of the labouring masses, while the bourgeois lords feast upon the fruits of our industry!