(1) Gambetta, D., The origins of the Mafias (Cambridge: Mimeo, 1991), p. 2.Google Scholar

(2) Vaksbehc, A., La Mafia sovietica [Sovietskaya Mafya, 1991], trans, by Giordano, S. (Milano: Baldini e Castoldi, 1992), p. 247.Google Scholar

(3) Russia Express-Executive Briefing, issue no. 83, 27 July 1992, 26–7.

(4) Volobuev, Anatoli in Dolgova, A.I., Orgamsovannaya prestupnost' [Organized Crime] (Moscow: Iuridicheskaya Literatura, 1989), p. 31Google Scholar, quoted in Serio, J., Organized Crime in the Soviet Union and Beyond, Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement, vol. 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1992), p. 129.Google Scholar

(5) Gambetta, D., The origins of the Mafias, p. 1.Google Scholar

(6) According to Duggan, Mafia was a word of abuse that political factions of all sorts levelled at each other. Duggan, C., Fascism and the Mafia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

(7) Gambetta, D., The origins of the Mafias, p. 2.Google Scholar

(8) Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia (London: Harvard University Press, 1993), 77–8.Google Scholar

(9) Ibidem, p. 84.

(10) Ibidem, p. 91.

(11) Furubotn, E.G., Pejovich, S., The Economics of Property Rights (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1974).Google Scholar

(12) Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, P. 94.Google Scholar

(13) Ibidem, p. 80.

(14) Ibidem, p. 78.

(15) Banfield, E.C., The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (New York: The Free Press, 1958).Google Scholar

(16) Davis, J., Law and Family in Pisticci (London: London University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

(17) See Hess, H., Mafia and mafiosi: The Structure of Power [Mafia: Zentrale Herrschaft und lokale Gegenmacht, 1970], trans, by Oser, E. (Lexington Mass.: Lexington Books, 1973), 17–18.Google Scholar

(18) Blok, A., The Mafia of a Sicilian Village (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), p. 90.Google Scholar The campieri constituted a kind of private police force which, in the absence of an efficient formal control apparatus, claimed to preserve law and order in the countryside. Ibidem, p. 61.

(19) Hess, , Mafia and mafiosi, p. 19.Google Scholar

(20) Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, p. 80.Google Scholar

(21) L. FRANCHETTI, Condizioni politiche ed amministrative della Sicilia [1876], vol. 1 in Franchetti, L. and Sonnino, S., Inchiesta in Sicilia (Florence: Vallecchi, 1974), 90–1Google Scholar, quoted by Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, P. 79.Google Scholar

(22) See Gambetta, D., The origins of the Mafias, p. 14–15.Google Scholar

(23) For a critical review, see Pezzino, P., Una certa reciprocità di favori: Mafia e modernizzazione nella Sicilia post-unitaria (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1990)Google Scholar, and Tranfaglia, N., La mafia come metodo (Roma Bari: Laterza, 1991).Google Scholar

(24) HESS, Mafia and mafiosi.

(25) Arguably, the electoral results in Corleone, a high-density Mafia town outside Palermo and Totò Riina's birthplace, are even more significant. The left-wing 31 year old candidate obtained 70 % of the votes, ousting the Christian Democratic Party rival, Michele La Torre, mayor almost without interruption since 1968 (Repubblica, 7/XII/1993).

(26) Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, 252–4.Google Scholar

(27) The present paper's title, Is Sicily the Future of Russia?, refers to ‘Is Mexico the future of Eastern Europe?’, by M. CROAN, published in Huntinoton, S.P. and Moore, C.H. (ed.), Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established OneParty Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1970), 451–483.Google Scholar

(28) Serio, J., Organized Crime in the Soviet Union and Beyond, 134–5.Google Scholar

(29) Kommissarov, V.S., O nekotorykh problemakh bor'by s organizovannoj prestupnost'yu in Min'Kovskii, G., (ed.), Bor'ba s organizovannoj prestupnost'yu: problemy teorii i praktiki [Combating organized crime: theoretical and practical problems] (Moscow: Ministry of Internal affairs, USSR National Academy, 1990), p. 50Google Scholar, quoted in Serio, J., Organized Crime in the Soviet Union and Beyond, p. 135.Google Scholar

(30) Ibidem, p. 135.

(31) Moskovskii reket: Khotyat li gangstery voiny? [Moscow Racket: Do the gangsters want war?] Kommersant, no. 46, 26 November-3 December 1990, 24–5. The Tsigane (Gypsies) are most visible as beggars on the streets and are known for being involved in minor robberies. ‘Now in Moscow there are 20 major groups, involving approximately 8,000 members. It is typical to have from 25 to 300 soldiers in each group’. Serio, , Organized Crime in the Soviet Union and Beyond, p. 138.Google Scholar

(32) On the co-operative movement, see Jones, A., Moskoff, W., Ko-ops. The Rebirth of Entreprenership in the Soviet Union (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

(33) Pipes, R., The Russian Revolution 1899–1919 (London: Collins Harvill, 1990), 53–7.Google Scholar

(34) In France, such a distinction appeared as early as approximately 1290, when custom required the king to safeguard crown estate as inviolable trust. After 1364, French kings had to swear an oath that they would not alienate any part of the royal domain as constituted on their accession. In the sixteenth century, it was further specified that the King's conquests were at his disposal for only ten years, after which they merged with the crown domains. Pipes, R., Russia Under the Old Regime (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974), 65–66 and 69.Google Scholar

(35) Ibidem, p. 70.

(36) Idem.

(37) Ibidem, p. 313.

(38) Ibidem, p. 313–14.

(39) The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, introduction and notes by D. RYAZANOFF (London: Martin Lawrence Limited, 1930), 43–5.

(40) Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [1936 text] in Unger, A., Constitutional Development in the USSR (London: Methuen, 1981), 140–58.Google Scholar Art. 10 became Art. 13 in the 1977 new Constitution. See Ibidem, 230–66.

(41) Hulika, K. and Hulika, I., Soviet Institutions and Society (Boston: The Christopher Publishing House, 1967), p. 584.Google Scholar

(42). Simis, K., USSR: The Corrupt Society (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), P. 94–5.Google Scholar

(43) I am drawing here upon J. SERIO, Organized Crime in the Soviet Union and Beyond.

(44) Serio, J., Organized Crime in the Soviet Union and Beyond, 133–4.Google Scholar See also Whitfield, S., Industrial Power and the Soviet State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), especially p. 105–9.Google Scholar

(45) Galeotti, M., Organized Crime in Moscow and Russian National Security, Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement, vol. 1, no. 3 (Winter 1992), p. 239.Google Scholar Further evidence on Medunov, and more generally on corruption, is provided by Clark, W.A., Crime and Punishment in Soviet Officialdom (New York London: M.E. Sharpe, 1993), 167–71.Google Scholar

(46) See Vaksberg, A., La Mafia sovietica (1992)Google Scholar and Coulloudon, V., La Mafia en Union Soviétique (Paris: JC Lattes, 1990)Google Scholar, for various instances.

(47) There are altogether very few cases of Italian Mafiosi who committed suicide. They usually do so in order to signal to their ‘family’ that they did not give away the secrets they knew or to protect relatives. Recently, A. Gioé, a Mafioso from Altofonte investigated for the murder of Giovanni Falcone, killed himself (Repubbliea, 3/VIII/1903. I am grateful to V. Pizzini for bringing this article to my attention and for an enlightening discussion on this point). In a letter he left behind, he explicitly urote he did not regret his various deeds.

(48) Independent, 27/111/1992.

(49) Repubblica, 24/1/1992.

(50) In total, 1,547 of the 26,000 companies that employ more than 200 workers or have assets valued over 1 million rubles, were sold by the end of April 1993. Financial Times, 27/V/1993.

(51) Sole 24 Ore, 30/V1/92.

(52) Byt, 11/1992.

(53) The Economist, 11/XII/1993.

(54) Repubblica, 4/VI/1993.

(55) Programma uglubleniya ekonomicheskikh reform (Moscow: Government of Russian Federation, 1992), p. 90.

(56) Wecren, S.K., Trends in Russian Agrarian Reform, RFE/RL, vol. 2, no. 13, 26 March 1993, p. 51.Google Scholar According to Alexander Kalinin, leader of the government agroindustrial complex department, there are now 48 million land plots—8 % of all agricultural areas—in the hands of private owners, and 180,000 private farms on which around 0.5 million Russian citizens are working (lzvestia, 28/1/1993).

(57) Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 29/X/1993.

(58) Art. 9, sub-paragraph 2. Text in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 10/XII/1993, p. 3–6.

(59) Text in lzvestia, 14/V1/1991, p. 3–5.

(60) ‘In a centralized economy, the supreme political and economic authorities coalesce, the Politburo is at one and the same time the supreme arbiter of politics and board of directors of USSR Ltd., the largest firm in the world’. Nove, A., The Soviet Economic System (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980), p. 25.Google Scholar

(61) Guidelines for a Law of Contracts have also been approved in the last months of the USSR's life. Principles of civil legislation of the USSR and the Republics were approved on 31 May, 1991 and came into effect on 1 January 1992 (replacing a law of 8 December, 1961). Text in Izvestia, 25/VI/1991, p. 3–7.

(62) This is no doubt an empirical question to be established. Nevertheless, it could be argued that under certain conditions—namely, pressure to develop markets—invariably the institutions of an old regime will change more slowly than private markets.

(63) Dornbusch, R., Priorities of Economic Reform in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Centre for Economic Policy Research Occasional Paper no. 5 (London: February 1991), p. 7.Google Scholar

(64) Idem.

(65) Jones, and Moskoff, , Ko-ops, p. 5–6.Google Scholar

(66) Frydman, R., Rapaczynski, A., and Earle, J., The Privatization Process in Russia, Ukraine and the Baltics (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, quoted in Charap, J. and Webster, L., Constrains on the development of private manufacturing in St Petersburg, Economics of Transformation, vol. 1, no. 3 (September 1993), p. 315.Google Scholar

(67) Naishul, V., Liberalism, Customary Rights and Economic Reforms, Communist Economies and Economic Transformation, vol. 5, no. 1 (1993). P. 55.Google Scholar

(68) Financial Times, 27/V/1993.

(69) The Moscow Letter, vol. 1, no. 3, 1 February 1992. This is a newsletter published by a pool of western legal firms operating in Russia. In the article I am quoting from, the author is narrating a story of legal uncertainty involving a western company, Capital Contracts.

(70) The Moscow Letter, vol. 1, no. 22, 15 November 1992.

(71) See The Times, 18/IV/1992, Repubblica, 21/1/1992 and Sunday Times Magazine, 12/1/1992.

(72) Repubblica, 4/VI/1993.

(73) II manifesto, 12/IX/92.

(74) ITAR-TASS, 27/1/1993.

(75) Yasmann, V., New Russian Copyright Laws Protect Computer Software, RFE/RL, vol. 2, no. 11, 12 March 1993, p. 48.Google Scholar

(76) This is the Rosapo (Russian Agency for the Legal Protection of Computer Software, Data banks and Topology of Integrated Circuits) Director General's opinion. Poisk, no. 10, 1992.

(77) Yasmann, V., New Russian Copyright Laws Protect Computer Software, p. 48.Google Scholar

(78) Newsweek, 20/IV/1992.

(79) Izvestia, 26/11/1990 and New Times, no 35, 1989.

(80) Pravda, 31/VI/1990 and TASS, 27/VI/1990. Figures after the first half of 1991 were no longer comparable because of the independence of the Baltics. All the same, all the figures show a continued growth in crime. See Shelley, L., The militia and crime control (Mimeo, 1993). 4–5.Google Scholar

(81) Krasnaya Zvezda, 4/VII/1990.

(82) These data are taken from Crime—The Threat to Russia, documents prepared for a closed Kremlin Conference on Organized Crime in Russia (12–13/11/1993). See Nezavisimaya Gazeta 12/11/93, and Kommersant-Daily 16/11/1993.

(83) Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 28/X/1993.

(84) See, for some instances, ITAR-TASS, 18/X/92.

(85) See Trud, 24/VIII/1990, Rabochaya Tribuna, 30/XI/1990, Komsomolskaya Pravda, l/1993.

(86) A boy in Moscow exploited the security mania by selling spray cans of de-icers as if they were paralysing gas (such as CS gas) against thieves. It should be noticed that the rising demand for protection has given him the opportunity to perpetuate the fraud and sell what people believed was an imperfect substitute for protection.

(87) Shelley, L., The militia and crime control, p. 5.Google Scholar

(88) Newsweek, 5/X/92. See also Moscow News, 21/V/1993.

(89) According to him, a ‘commercial shop’ thief can boast an average daily scoop of 100,000 rubles (Golos, 2/111/1992). Many of the new shop owners themselves invite crime. A day's earnings are very often left overnight in flimsy outdoor kiosks (Ibidem).

(90) Business people operating in Moscow and other major cities are reported as having appealed to foreign police to assist them (Shelley, L., Post-Soviet Organized Crime: Implications for the development of Soviet successor states and foreign countries, Mimeo, 1993, 14–5).Google Scholar The FBI is to open an office in Moscow (Paddy Rawlinson, personal communication).

(91) Stepankov also notes that the Russian penal code does not take into account economic crimes. ‘Russian justice cannot do anything to persecute economic crimes, because it cannot apply old Soviet laws which referred to socialist property’. Corriere della Sera, 12/11/1993.

(92) A further relevant novelty of the new Criminal Code concerns the collective responsibility of members of organized criminal groups. See Moscow News, 3/XII/1993.

(93) Kuranty, 22/1/1992.

(94) Times, 13/V/92.

(95) TV Programme Novosti and ITAA-TASS, 4/11/1992.

(96) Megalopolis-Continent, 16/111/1992.

(97) Data taken from Crime—The Threat to Russia. See Kommersant-Daily 16/11/1993. An intriguing feature of the transition to the market and the spread of ownership is the increase in petty frauds where everyone entering transactions is liable to be a victim. Demand of protection from fraud should be taken into consideration, even if the threat is not posed by a machine gun. Details of the most common of them have been spelled out by a canny swindler interviewed by state TV, Andrei Ujutnov, currently in jail (TV Programme Novosti 27/V111/1992).

(98) Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, p. 78–9.Google Scholar

(99) In one survey of Muscovites, 26 % thought they themselves would become unemployed after marketization of the economy. JONES and MOSKOFF, Ko-ops, p. 127. See also D. J. PETERSON, New data published on Employment and Unemployment in the USSR, Report on the USSR, vol. 2, no. 1, 5 January, 1990, p. 4.

(100) Rossiya, no. 9, 24/11/1993.

(101) Kommersant, 3/11/1992.

(102) Repubblica, 13/1/1993 and Interfax, 2/11/1993.

(103) See Galeotti, M., Police and Paramilitaries: Public Order Forces and Resources, Report on the USSR, vol. 2, no. 23, 8 June, 1990, p. 6–9.Google Scholar

(104) TASS, 27/VI/1989 and Radio Moscow, 13/111/1990.

(105) Galeotti, M., Police and Paramilitaries: Public Order Forces and Resources, p. 7.Google Scholar Dr. C.A. Thomas, of the Socio-Legal Studies Centre of Wolfson College, Oxford, has informed me that the Russian judiciary is experiencing a similar out-flow of quality personnel. Increasingly, judges prefer to work for private law firms.

(106) Tsypkin, M., Workers' Militia: Order Instead of Law?, Report on the USSR, Vol. 1, no. 46, 17 November, 1989, p. 16.Google Scholar

(107) Trud, 24/VIII/1990.

(108) Izvestia, 9/VII/1991.

(109) Crime—The Threat to Russia and Kommersant-Daily 16/11/1993.

(110) M. TSYPKIN, Workers' Militia: Order Instead of Law?, p. 16. According to Kommersant (26/XII/1990), the gang controls some prostitution and most of its income is derived from shell games and other confidence games.

(111) Megalopolis-Express, 11/111/1991.

(112) Idem.

(113) Idem.

(114) Moscow News (21/v/93).

(115) Idem.

(116) Lt-Col. Nikolai Tsiplenkov, in Idem.

(117) Idem.

(118) This is not, however, the only possible pattern and further qualifications need to be adduced to explain the peculiar equilibrium reached in the case of Top.

(119) Jones, and Moskoff, , Ko-ops, p. 92.Google Scholar The idea for this was put forward earlier in 1989 by MVD Chief Bakatin. See Trehub, A., Hard Time for Soviet Policemen, Report on the USSR, vol. 1, no. 23, 9 June, 1989, p. 21.Google Scholar

(120) See Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, 15–34.Google Scholar

(121) Gobs, 2/111/1992.

(122) Idem.

(123) Independent, 27/111/1992.

(124) The cost of a place outside the big hotels in Moscow—Cosmos, Rossiya and Intourist—was a thousand rubles a month in January 1992: ‘Rich folks stay there [in the hotels], so you have to pay a thousand for a pitch there’, Moscow News, 12/1/1992.

(125) D. GAMBETTA, The Sicilian Mafia, passim.

(126) Barzel, Y., Economic Analysis of Property Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 2.Google Scholar

(127) See Independent, 27/111/1992.

(128) Moscow Netos, 12/1/1992.

(129) Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, 22–24.Google Scholar

(130) Nonetheless, a form of competition arises in a market protected by the Mafia, and it is a harmful one: sellers compete not by improving quality or reducing prices but by buying or developing internally more efficient violent skills.

(131) Moscow News, 12/1/1992.

(132) Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, 28–33.Google Scholar Managers of the ‘Red Zone’ disco in Moscow are said to have directly asked for protection, agreeing on 1,200 US dollar per month. It has been reported from St Petersburg that, when a Russian businessman complained to his high level gangster friends that someone had stolen a million rubles from his safe, his friends went hunting. Within three days, according to a source close to the gangsters, the million was returned safe (Newsweek, 5/X/92). For another instance of a successful businessman actively searching for mafia protection see Charap, and Webster, , Private Manufacturing in St Petersburg, p. 310, 316.Google Scholar

(133) Moscow News, 12/1/1992. On phony Mafiosi, see Gambetta, , The Sicilian Mafia, 28–33.Google Scholar

(134) Jones, and Moskoff, , Ko-ops, 85–6.Google Scholar

(135) Gambetta, D., The Sicilian Mafia, 28–33.Google Scholar