Comrades! Behold the latest manoeuvres of the financial oligarchy! We are told, with a straight face, that since the dawn of 1826, the banking houses of Russia have dispersed some 2.18 trillion rubles in the form of mortgages—a staggering increase of forty-six per centum over the previous year. The bourgeois press calls this 'growth'; I call it the systematic expansion of exploitation!

What is the nature of this phenomenon? One Mr. Oleg Bendrikov, a servant of the real estate trade, suggests that a lowering of the key rate and the mere rumour of stricter terms for 'family loans' drove the masses into the arms of the lenders. Mark this well: the capitalist class employs the most cunning psychological warfare, creating a false sense of urgency to trick the working man into signing away his future earnings. They dangle the carrot of a roof over one's head, only to snap the iron chain of debt around the neck of the labourer!

Furthermore, as the prices of new constructions soar to heights accessible only to the wealthiest parasites, the desperate toilers are forced toward the secondary market, where the vultures of capital await them. Even the so-called 'mortgage holidays' promised for the coming September are naught but a crumb thrown from the master's table to prevent a total collapse of the indebted masses.

The so-called 'experts' dare to predict that if the monetary policy remains lenient, the demand for these predatory loans shall only increase. Indeed, the monopoly of financial capital seeks to transform every honest worker into a perpetual tenant of the bank. We must ask ourselves: is this 'progress,' or is it the calculated triumph of the usurers over the proletariat? The machinery of the mortgage is but a modern engine of serfdom, designed to drain the lifeblood of the трудящиеся (toilers) to fatten the purses of the idle bourgeoisie!