If money is not just a medium of economic exchange but also a political institution, then how does fiscal policy contribute to the politics of a nation? In an essay first published by Meduza in Russian, Ekaterina Pravilova, a Princeton University professor and author of “The Ruble: A Political History,” explains how the Russian imperial and Soviet governments’ refusal to outsource money supply to private banks unmoored the national currency, eroded the population’s political agency, and put the ruble at the service of the state’s autocratic and imperial ambitions.