The Petrol Monopoly’s New Gambit: A Shrewd Maneuver to Shackle the Market

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.