Russian Mafia

In any revolution there is a potential for those that displace the former government to be as corrupt or more so than their predecessors. Such a phenomena has occurred in Russia where Communism and its modus operandi of corruption seems to have been replaced in the 1990s by the Mafia whose modus operandi is even more corrupt and detrimental to free markets and democracy. In his book Comrade Criminal, Stephen Handelman, a Moscow Bureau Chief for The Toronto Star from 1987 to 1992, assesses the situation through his interviews conducted with mobsters, police, political officials, nouveau riche and average citizens. The book reveals that the Mafia has basically risen to power through methods that were nearly identical to those of Communist leaders. They employ democratic rhetoric, put up a democratic fa�ade, use the KGB and control through coercion political officials, the press, the courts, private enterprise and the people. The loss of Communist power resulted in a void of leadership for the New Russia which was formulated around Perestroika's values of free markets, replacing old Party bosses with more capable leaders, and adjusting politics to realities. However, the Mafia would achieve all these goals in ways that Gorbachev never envisioned. The void in leadership allowed a much more organized and effective leadership to emerge, one based on crime, coercion and corruption-the Mafiya. The Mafiya was alive and well in Russia bef

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e who owns a profitable business is allowed to profit in the amount deemed allowable by the Mafiya. Should the owner of a business balk at the Mafiya's control, he will normally lose his business through corrupt officials declaring him in violation of some law or even be killed by the Mafiya, as were many bank presidents during the period from 1990-1994, "The danger isn't that a former member of the apparat becomes a bank president. The trouble is, rather, that this person is�bound hand and foot to his social class-to the apparat, the military-industrial complex, and the KGB. He is dependent on that trinity in everything he does, because he obtains his property rights from them for a price: a silent oath of loyalty. If h breaks that oath, he will not remain a property owner for long" (Handelman 113). The rise of the Mafiya should not be surprising when one considers that even the actions of Boris Yeltsin hardly bespeak of open markets and a democratic society. After all, we have here a leader who was fired because of unconstitutional actions, a leader who then unleashes tanks on the Parliament. Free markets and commercial enterprises are stifled and damaged through the efforts of the Mafiya. Whether it is through the u

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