Comrades! Cast your gaze upon the latest proclamations from the halls of power in Moscow. Mr. Alexander Novak, acting as the mouthpiece for the ruling administration, has declared a most curious adjustment to the laws of trade. The quota for petrol sales upon the St. Petersburg Exchange—that great counting-house of the modern age—is to be reduced from fifteen per centum to a mere ten per centum of total production.

Mark well the language used! They speak of 'stabilization.' But what is this 'stabilization' if not a desperate attempt to prevent the volatile whims of Capital from triggering a collapse that would threaten the profits of the industrial lords? To ensure that the price does not flutter like a frightened bird, they have imposed a rigid limit on price fluctuations, restricting each transaction to a paltry 0.01 per centum. Truly, a masterpiece of bureaucratic constraint designed to keep the gears of the monopoly grinding smoothly!

And what of the fuel thus liberated from the exchange? The whispers of the trade-press suggest it shall be diverted toward agricultural producers and 'socially significant consumers.' Let us not be deceived by such philanthropy! It is a mere crumb tossed to the peasantry to prevent an uprising, while the great oil-syndicates continue their exploitation of the masses.

Note, furthermore, that the diesel fuel quota remains untouched at sixteen per centum. The masters of Capital are selective in their mercies; they tinker only where the threat to their hegemony is most acute. It is the same old story: the bourgeois state rearranging the deck-chairs on the ship of Capital, while the toil of the proletariat continues to fuel their insatiable greed.