Comrades! Cast your gaze upon the latest proclamations from the financial salons of the bourgeoisie. One Mr. Kirill Seleznev, a servant of the 'Garda Capital' apparatus, has seen fit to divulge the forthcoming manoeuvres of the Central Bank regarding the key interest rate.

Mark well his words: it is predicted that by late October, the Bank shall cease its superficial descent in rates, opting instead for a 'pause'. This is no mere technicality, but a calculated stratagem! The bourgeois financiers wait upon the inflation data of August and the volatile price of fuel—tools they use to justify the tightening of the noose around the neck of the proletariat.

Consider the cold logic of the exploiters: as the State Duma prepares its budget projections for the coming three years, any deficit in the coffers of the state is met not with a redistribution of wealth, but with a more stringent, more ruthless monetary policy. The burden, as always, falls upon the shoulders of the working class!

Though some dream of a reduction to thirteen and a half per cent by December, let us not be deceived. The monopoly of the Central Bank may either maintain this crushing weight or increase it further, citing 'inflationary expectations' or 'budgetary deficits'—the customary excuses of the money-lenders to secure their profit through the misery of others.

And what of the people? We see a most harrowing spectacle: in July, the Russian populace was driven to borrow a record sum of 487.04 billion rubles in cash credits. Is this not the very definition of debt-slavery? The capitalist machine lures the worker into a pit of credit, only to ensure that the labouring masses remain forever indebted to the usurers of the Great Capital!