WI: Soviet organized crime (vory v zakone/thieves in law) completely eliminated

[Ryker of Terra]

I recently made a thread about Italian organized crime (Mafia et al.) being fully destroyed by Mussolini and the fascists. The basic ideas I took away from the discussion there were:

A) Crime will always exist;
B) Destroying only one group will lead to another stepping in to fill the vacuum (ex. eliminate the Sicilian Mafia, and the Camorra will move in);
C) Even if you remove EVERY criminal from the equation, the culture of crime takes longer to get rid of.

So I wanted to discuss the same idea in regards to Soviet/Russian organized crime. This criminal element has many names - vory v zakone, thieves in law, Russian Mafiya, Bratva. It has it's own slang, laws and culture. Unfortunately, there isn't that much information about it, especially compared to the Sicilian Mafia. All I know for sure is that there were a lot of them in the GULAG and Stalin offered them freedom/reduced sentences if they took up arms against the Germans. There was conflict between those that took the offer and those that didn't (a core tenet of the vory is that you NEVER cooperate with the authorities in any way). This lead to the Bitch Wars - a sort of civil war within the prisons. Generally though, the Soviet system was repressive enough that organized crime in the USSR didn't take off until Perestroika and the resulting political/economic liberalization, and really flourished only after the collapse.

It was said on the Wikipedia page that "As the police and court system were re-established in the Soviet Union shortly after the 1917 revolution, the NKVD secret police nearly exterminated the criminal underworld completely." So apparently they came damn close to pulling it off. I'm skeptical of this claim since it isn't mentioned in the source provided, and the NKVD didn't even exist back then, but let's say it's true (or true enough). It probably wouldn't be that hard to finish the job - you just need the Bolsheviks to put a greater emphasis on destroying organized crime in addition to all the general bloodletting that was going on at the time.

Let's say that Lenin had some bad experiences with these dudes, with someone close to him (like his wife) being harmed or killed by them. Or maybe Stalin (who robbed banks to get money for the party back in the day) feels some disdain for these (purely selfish) criminals and wants them gone forever. So let's say they manage to pull it off. All organized criminals (from every city/town they can be found) are either packed off to a special ISOLATED labor camp (to prevent any contact with outsiders that might spread their culture) until they die out, or get executed outright. Crime will always exist, sure, but in this case, only disorganized petty criminals remain.

Someone in the previous thread said that if the fascists stuck around long enough (and kept ruling with a totalitarian iron fist), the Mafia culture would have died out. Well, all the organized criminals are gone by the 30s-40s, and the USSR will stick around for at least another 40 years, barring butterflies. The harsh system will ensure that any new criminals will have a hard time establishing themselves, and closed borders means no one from abroad can move in and fill the vacuum.

So, what happens? What are the effects of no organized crime in the Soviet Union?

 

[Ryker of Terra]

Just to make it clear, any organized criminal groups that might pop up later will all be dealt with in the same way - death or the aforementioned isolated labor camp.

 

[Blyatnik]

The USSR had organized crime, but it wasn't really even as bad as the American or Italian Mafias of the same era infesting their cities (or the countryside in the case of the Italians). The real problem in the USSR was corruption by party bureaucrats and out-of-touch Gerontocrats ruling everything from a decaying Ivory palace. Stalin mass-murdering criminals won't solve that unless Stalinists like Molotov and Kaganovich (both of which lived into the 1980's and would continue his policies loyally) continue the same reign but apply it to corruption and waste, two things that would get a death sentence during Stalin's reign.

By simply executing all your gang members and criminals, things will be less stressful for the business and even the industry in some way, considering most bribing was done by the Vory, but the institutional problems with the Soviet Bureaucracy will still be around.

 

[Ryker of Terra]

The USSR had organized crime, but it wasn't really even as bad as the American or Italian Mafias of the same era infesting their cities (or the countryside in the case of the Italians). The real problem in the USSR was corruption by party bureaucrats and out-of-touch Gerontocrats ruling everything from a decaying Ivory palace. Stalin mass-murdering criminals won't solve that unless Stalinists like Molotov and Kaganovich (both of which lived into the 1980's and would continue his policies loyally) continue the same reign but apply it to corruption and waste, two things that would get a death sentence during Stalin's reign.

By simply executing all your gang members and criminals, things will be less stressful for the business and even the industry in some way, considering most bribing was done by the Vory, but the institutional problems with the Soviet Bureaucracy will still be around.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I definitely agree that corruption would remain the biggest problem, but for the purposes of this thread, we're not making any institutional changes to the Soviet system. I'm merely interested in what the absence of organized crime itself would lead to. A couple of thoughts I had:

1. Culture. The thing about organized crime in the USSR, is that it managed to spread its culture far and wide. Everyone and their mother got some time in the GULAG and were exposed to the vory, including political dissidents, artists, etc. and it helped spread mat (Russian profanities) to the regular population. The criminals that joined the Red Army disseminated their culture there too, which ultimately lead to dedovshchina (particularly brutal hazing in the Armed Forces). In general, there was an injection of vor culture into mainstream culture.

2. Assuming the USSR still collapses, there might be less crime in the post-Soviet states. Or at least less homegrown crime - foreign groups would probably move in?

 

[Cudymcar]

There was no organized crime in imperial Russia. "Thieves in law" first organized themselves only in th 1930s. Anyway, they weren't a big deal in the USSR. What is known as "Bratva" is quite a different matter. They were street gangs who rose to prominence in the chaos of the 1990s. "Bratva" and "Vory" despised each other.

 

[Ryker of Terra]

There was no organized crime in imperial Russia. "Thieves in law" first organized themselves only in th 1930s. Anyway, they weren't a big deal in the USSR. What is known as "Bratva" is quite a different matter. They were street gangs who rose to prominence in the chaos of the 1990s. "Bratva" and "Vory" despised each other.

Organized bandit groups in the Russian Empire were the precursors of the Vory. But alright, let's say the thieves in law get clapped in the 30s when they're first organizing instead. 1930s criminals still influenced the later development of crime, so with them gone, there might be less crime in the long run.

 

[Cudymcar]

Organized bandit groups in the Russian Empire were the precursors of the Vory

Precursors, yes, but they had no vertical hierarchy. They were organized only in the sense that every group of humans is somehow organized.

1930s criminals still influenced the later development of crime, so with them gone, there might be less crime in the long run

They were almost exterminated in the end of 1940s, with this "Bitches' War" and Stalin's harsh treatment. To keep it this way, you have to keep Stalin-like terror either.

 

[El Pip]

I definitely agree that corruption would remain the biggest problem, but for the purposes of this thread, we're not making any institutional changes to the Soviet system. I'm merely interested in what the absence of organized crime itself would lead to.

It does depend on what you define organised crime as. The black market was massive and certainly by the Brezhnez era (if not earlier) involved much of the bureaucracy and upper reaches of government. It was all criminal and it was certainly organised, but to stamp it out does require massive changes in the Soviet institutions and indeed wider Soviet economy.

A specific group and criminal culture, like the "Vory" could be wiped out with some Stalinist purges and repression. But as long as their is a massive black market and enough corruption to tolerate it then organised crime is going to develop, maybe with a different culture and set of rules (or lack of them) but people will realise they can make more money for less effort if the crimes are organised.

 

[LeX]

Thanks for your thoughts.

I definitely agree that corruption would remain the biggest problem, but for the purposes of this thread, we're not making any institutional changes to the Soviet system. I'm merely interested in what the absence of organized crime itself would lead to. A couple of thoughts I had:

1. Culture. The thing about organized crime in the USSR, is that it managed to spread its culture far and wide. Everyone and their mother got some time in the GULAG and were exposed to the vory, including political dissidents, artists, etc. and it helped spread mat (Russian profanities) to the regular population. The criminals that joined the Red Army disseminated their culture there too, which ultimately lead to dedovshchina (particularly brutal hazing in the Armed Forces). In general, there was an injection of vor culture into mainstream culture.

2. Assuming the USSR still collapses, there might be less crime in the post-Soviet states. Or at least less homegrown crime - foreign groups would probably move in?

I was always under the impression that the Russian criminal world is so prominent because of how mainstream Soviet society itself created the "cracks" for crooks to thrive.

Under Stalin, the criminals could be killed or sent to perform hard labor or fight enemies, but they'd still be in the gulags, which were an essential part of the Stalinist system.

After Stalin, many of the remaining criminals would be "rehabilitated," but they'd still be the black markets and possibly the grassroots community organizations, which were an essential part of the post-Stalin system.

After the dismantling of planned economics and the fall of the Soviet Union, the criminals would naturally thrive because they were deeply familiar with the "meta-business" inside the system for decades (whether it be in the gulags or black markets) in spite of — or perhaps due to — the fact that the system so emphasized regimentation and political control over what in a capitalist country would be largely left to the private sector.

To be honest, I suspect the criminals were probably so established (if not yet in full bloom) in Soviet society by the mid-20th century that even if the Soviet Union managed to survive, the mafiya would rise one way or the other. Perhaps we'd see "red crime bosses" in the same vein as China's "red capitalists" -- crooks manage to join the CPSU and exercise political as well as underworld power.