RE CNN on Russia's criminal economy
With the sad benefit of knowing a little both Russian criminals and the
Washington group advising on them, let me change the focus of discussion.
The question whether half, two thirds or the entire Russian economy is
controlled by organized crime is meaningless. It's purpose is political --
to impress a certain sub-committee at the Hill, boost an inter-agency
enterprise in DC primarily (FBI has its interest, but so does the CIA keen
on redeeming itself and finding new enemies, plus the former Sovietological
expert community -- in a nutshell, watch The Peacemaker movie).
Nevertheless the trans-Atlantic political interests involved and the sheer
simplicity of the impressionist number quoted by CNN does not mean that the
problem of organized crime does not exist in Russia. In the Soviet period
there was a tightly-knit (therefore well-controlled) underworld dominated
by the traditional "Thieves in the Law". This institution was fostered by
the Soviet orphanage system and the GULag. Curiously, it modelled itself
after the professional revolutionaty underground and the popular Orthodox
cult of saintly elders (startsy). The moral community of the thieves could
exist as long as it was bounded. With the collapse of state socialism
totally new competitors entered the scene - ethnic mafias first and
foremost (this includes Russian "brigades" from the outskirts of large
cities like Moscow, Kazan, or Sverdlovsk, which grew out of the teenage
gangs); but also the groups of declasse professionals in coercion, such as
former cops, sportsmen, paratroopers. One more group were the
entrepreneurs of former Soviet shadow economy whose protection usually
resided within the corrupt state apparatus.
Organized crime assumed two major functions which the state couldn't under
the post-1991 circumstances: regulation of competitive struggles and
protection of property rights. Development of a core-like social patterns
out of the post-Soviet rubble required one major condition which simply
wasn't available -- an efficient, politically-controlled by the citizens,
generally social-democratic state. (Effective policing, small business
credit, flexible regulation, including the internal protectionism and
export-oriented guidance, etc.) The prospect of small-business
middle-class society was undermined by three kinds of monopolies eminently
present in Russia: gigantic, generally self-serving and arbitrary
bureaucracy, equally gigantic corporations and cartel-like alliances, and
the organized crime. Soon the three got intertwined because they were
competing after 1991 in the same field of politicized competition for the
control over the existing properties and the commodity flows (the
"Economy"). The process of institutionalization of controls over his field
has been ongoing and unusually fluid -- several different configurations of
power rose and fell already. The current demise is the break up of the
bank-centered oligarchy which had emerged during the presidential elections
of 1996. Will there be only one gigantic bank emerging? Will the power of
the banks be eroded wholesale? No less acute are the questions whether the
violent competition ("organized crime") will be curbed by the emergence of
one monopolistic supergroup, or, to the contrary, the break up and mutual
elimination of the competing "mafias" (I repeat that the distinction
between financial groups, business cartels, and purely criminal gangs is
such situation is theoretical -- state violence and coercion were
privatized, along the actually applied law. The category of crime is
largely irrelevant.)
This situation cannot last due to the sufferings it inflicts upon the
fractured power elites, although from the ordinary human standpoint it
hasn't been untolerable. Curiously, neither Andrey nor Nikolai are
particularly preoccupied with crime -- because, fortunately, the daily-life
violence in Russia isn't higher than in large American cities. More so, I
know from fieldwork that in several instances the rise of organized crime
significantly relieved the situation of common citizeny by
absorbing/suppressing former teenager street gangs (Kazan, Lyubertsy
outside Moscow as well.) Of course, it is more dangerous to be a banker, in
fact, one of the few historical situations when being a banker is
considerably more explosive than being a coalminer. But the chance of a
core-like Russia, if it ever existed, seems lost for a generation or more.
Waiting for Gen. Lebed,
Georgiļ M. Derluguian
Department of Sociology
Northwestern University
1812 Chicago Avenue
Evanston, Illinois 60208-1330
gderlug@nwu.edu
tel. (1-847) 491-2741