Revisiting the Problem of Organized Crime in Post-Soviet Development

By Louise I. Shelley

In 1994, the second full year of Demokratizatsiya’s publication, I analyzed the impact of organized crime on the development of post-Soviet states in an article entitled “Post-Soviet Organized Crime: Implications for Economic, Social, and Political Development.”1 This article was written at a time when many in the West were sure that the future course of development for Russia and other post-Soviet states was one of free markets and democracy. Most research on organized crime and high-level corruption in Russia would not be published until much later.2 My article provided a very different and contrarian approach to this rosy scenario for Soviet successor states. In the article’s introduction, I asserted that the infiltration of organized crime into the state would ensure that organized crime would “play a significant role in determining the future course of developments in the Soviet successor states.” In my view, organized crime represented an amalgam of traditional criminals, members of the state security apparatus, former military personnel, and law enforcement officials. I did not associate post-Soviet organized crime exclusively with the very v zakone, the traditional thieves in law or professional criminals. I was especially concerned at the time that the rapid and non-transparent privatization of state property to the benefit of corrupt politicians, organized crime, and their business partners would have persistent and deleterious long-term consequences, leading to the monopolization of key sectors of post-Soviet economies rather than the competitive economies needed for growth.

Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, Volume 30, Number 4, Fall 2022, pp. 411-419