status quo. «Исключенные» либо безмолвствуют, либо способны на «беспощадный бунт», не меняющий принципиально порождающих его отношений. Включенный «средний класс» и его идейные представители – либералы и либертарианцы – психологически не готовы отказаться от «благ» рынка и свободной экономики. Тем более, что им есть что терять, и не ясно, что они приобретут со сменой парадигмы и ее практических воплощений.
Между тем, «формирующаяся мировая экономика должна привести к положению, при котором для выполнения всей необходимой работы потребуется всего 20 процентов рабочей силы, а 80 процентов людей окажутся не у дел, т. е. бесполезными потенциальными безработными»[491]. Впрочем, до этого человечество может и не дожить. «Ядерный пепел» становится все большей реальностью. Тем более, что и «правые», и «левые» жаждут насилием изменить мир, построить его «по-своему», т. е. очередное «светлое будущее»…
Organized Crime in Contemporary Russia[492]
Organized crime is a form of a social organization of our society. Vladimir Ovchinskiy[493]
I. Introduction
Organized crime is a very topical issue and currently the subject of a lot of research. On the one hand organized crime is the serious danger to society. Criminal structures have access to a lot of wealth and capital, let alone ample experience of cooperating with business enterprises and even some politicians. On the other hand the stripping of a cloak of mystery and myths of Mafia and organized crime is an important task.
II. Contemporary Russian Criminality
Organized crime is a part of criminality. And firstly we will look at the trend of criminality and its types in Russia which may prove astonishing (Tables 1,2). We can see:
• The rate (per 100,000 inhabitants) of registered crime decreased in 1963-1965 (it was the time of the Khrushchev's «Thaw») and in 1986-1988 (it was the time of the Gorbachev's «Perestroika»), increased from 816.9 (1987) to 1887.8 (1993) and after a short stable period 1996-1998 increased again to 2700.7 in 2006.
• Reduction in the criminality rate started very unexpectedly and led to a decrease from 2700.7 in 2006 to 2112.0 in 2009.
Unexpectedly for the period of crisis, the rate of criminality has shown a reduction for all main types of crimes (Table 2).
There are two possible explanations to the unexpected reduction of criminality and its types since 2007
Firstly, it may be that crimes are concealed from registration which is considered commonplace these days.
Secondly, there is a real reduction (especially in homicide cases), observed also in other European countries (Harrendorf, Heiskanen, Malby 2010: 16-17,26,28,30; http://www.nplc.lt/centrov/reng/ren014/ren014.aspx). It may be assumed that this trend is the continuation of a worldwide change in criminality dynamics: from the well-documented rise in criminality from late 50 s of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century and a reduction in criminality from the beginning of the 21st century. A special international comparative study of this phenomenon is necessary.
It is possible that a both factors have contributed to this trend.
Table 1. Crimes, offenders and convicts in Russia (1961 – 2009)
Source: Annual «Crime and Delinquency» (1991-2010). Moscow: MVD RF, MJ RF.
Table 2. Various kind of recorded crimes in Russia (2005-2009) (http://crimpravo.ru/page/mvdstatistic/)
III. Organized Crime in Russia
There are many definitions of organized crime (Abadinsky 1994, Alba-nese 1995, Arlacchi 1986, Block 1994, Smith 1975 and others). We will use the definition of organized crime as the functioning of stable, hierarchical associations, engaged in crime as a form of business, and setting up a system of protection against public control by means of corruption[494].
Organized crime is a form of business enterprise. Gary Becker, Nobel Prize winner in Economics, speaks about this in the following way: «Criminal activity is just the same profession or trade as joinery, engineering or teaching which people devote their time to» (Becker 1987). It is chosen when profit (the revenues minus the production costs) exceeds that which legal can be made by persuing a legal occupation.
Are we always in a position to draw a distinction between legal and criminal businesses abiding by the criteria of morality and legality? In Russia, it is hardly possible.
Organized crime is not only the «sum of criminal organizations». It is a complicated social phenomenon, which has influence on the economy and policy of states. Criminal associations are a kind of social organization of a „working (labor) collective body“ type. The growth of the organizational aspect of crime is a natural, objective process; it is a manifestation of the growth of the organizational aspect of social systems as well as of their sub-systems (the economy, politics, etc.). It is a global, worldwide process.
Criminal business arises, exists and develops under certain conditions:
• demand for illegal goods (drugs, arms, etc.) and services (sexual, etc.);
• unsatisfied demand for legal goods and services (for example, total «deficit» in USSR);
• unemployment and others sources of social exclusion as social base of deviance, including criminality (Finer & Nellis, 1998; Kanfler, 1965; Lenoir, 1974; Paugam, 1996; Young, 1999);
• defective of tax-policy, customs policy of state, etc.
A criminal organization (syndicate) building up a system of organized crime (industry) is defined by the following key characteristics:
• a stable association of people, designed for long-term activity;
• criminal nature of the activity (financial pursuits dependent on criminal activity);
• deriving maximum profits as the key goal of the activity;
• complex hierarchical structure of the organization with its functions delimitated;
• the corruption of political bodies and law-enforcement bodies as the main means of the criminal activity;
• aspiration to monopolizing a certain type of trade or on a certain territory. The high degree of adaptability of criminal associations (resulting from their strict labor discipline, their careful selection of staff, the high profits, etc.) ensures their great vital capacity («the Mafia is immortal!»). For example, Russian criminal organizations recruit only the youngest, bravest and the most enterprising people.
We can see the trend of the official data about organized crime in Russia (Table 3).
Table 3. Date for crime of criminal organization (2003-2009) (http://www.mvd.ru/stats/)
We can see such main trends: the increase of some factors of organized crime before 2008 and the reduction in 2008, 2009, which has continued also in 2010.
Certainly, we can not completely rely on the official statistics. However, the changes observed in these indicators in Russia as well as in other countries may be indicative of a quantitative reduction of all parameters of criminality during a period of economic and financial crisis. This requires the special studies. But greatly qualitative features of organized crime have also changed greatly.
The following short summary of the history of Russian organized crime can help to understand the contemporary situation (Gilinskiy, 1997; Gilinskiy, 1998; Gilinskiy, 2002; Gilinskiy, 2006, Gilinskiy & Kostjukovsky, 2004). There are several periods of Russian organized crime.
1. Late 1970-s – early 1980-s
Firstly, late 1970s – early 1980s. It is the period when organized criminality in USSR began. This was mostly small illegal business with legal «co-operative societies», as well as big illegal business under the protection and with the participation of the leader communist party and state authorities, illegal exchange of currency and speculation («farcovka»). Scandals involving the illegal manufacturing and sale of cotton, fruit, caviar and fish in the 1970s and 1980s revealed for the first time the close alliances that «tenevics» (shady dealers) and other «traditional» criminals had with executive staff and official leaders of the Soviet Republics (the first secretaries of the Central Committees of the Communist Party in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan were all at some point involved in scandals), the central bodies of Communist Party, as well as government and law enforcement bodies.
2. Late 1980s – mid 1990s
Secondly late 80s until mid 90s was a period of the formation and shaping of the «persisting» organized crime. For instance, in 1990s in St. Petersburg there were four criminal communities of the mafia type (so-called Tambov's, Azerbaijan's, Chechen's, and Kazan's), some dozens of criminal associations (for example, Komarov's), and hundreds of criminal groups.
These were larger criminal organizations, concerning with racket, drug trafficking, the «protection» (racket) of small and middle-sized business, market trade, sex-business, theft and selling of cars, smuggling of non-ferrous metals across the border (through Estonia), control over gambling, production of and trafficking counterfeit hard liquor. Couterfeiting strong alcoholic drinks is a traditional criminal business. In 1990s it become possible to join with the legal strong drinks production. International brands such as vodka «Absolut», «French» cognac «Napoleon», «Italian» liquor «Ama-retto», and other appeared in commercial centres in large amounts. They were produced… in the city and in the area around it. The result of the international cooperation of criminals was that greater amounts of become that greater amount of adulterated strong drinks was produced, but afterwards counterfeited strong drinks were produced. But afterwards the authentic goods (atn corresponding prices) were on sale in Russia. These were imported from Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Germany.