In Russia, Mafiaism Is the New Communism
‘Das Kapital’ is out. ‘The Godfather’ is in.
ALEKSEI NAVALNY AND YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN had little in common. Except for the fact that they both got whacked on the orders of the same crime boss.
The extrajudicial execution of Navalny in an Arctic prison colony on February 16 had all the hallmarks of a mob hit carried out to send a message. An anti-corruption crusader whose groundbreaking work helped expose the kleptocratic nature of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin regime was eliminated—it’s as if Al Capone had somehow managed to knock off Eliot Ness.
Similarly, the events leading to Prigozhin’s assassination on August 23 looked like an internal mob dispute, what Russians call a vnutrennyaya razborka (criminal slang for ‘settling of scores’). When the longtime Putin crony, oligarch, and mercenary leader staged a mutiny with his aborted march on Moscow in June, he clearly had to go. As the unforgettable character Omar Little put it in the acclaimed television series The Wire, “you come at the king, you best not miss.” Prigozhin missed. And his fate thus resembled that of countless underbosses who got too ambitious.
“Putin is not a politician, he's a gangster,” Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, wrote in the Washington Post on March 13. But the issue is not just that Putin is a gangster. It is not just that his Kremlin behaves like an organized crime syndicate. The problem is much deeper than that.
The system of governance that Putin and his cronies have developed over the past quarter century, a system with deep roots in Russian political culture, can best be described as mafiaism. Like Communism before it, mafiaism is an unaccountable, nontransparent, autocratic, and arbitrary system of governance. Mafiaism, like Communism, seeks to expand its influence and conquer its neighbors—with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine being just the latest and most dramatic example. And like Communism, mafiaism poses a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States and its allies.
To be clear, mafiaism as a system of governance does not necessarily refer to Russian organized crime groups per se, although the Kremlin does often use such groups as instruments of statecraft. It also does not suggest that Russia is a “mafia state,” traditionally defined as a state that has been captured by organized crime groups.
Instead, the Russian state has become, in essence, an organized criminal enterprise, at least insofar as its internal logic, processes, incentive structure, and behavior resemble those of a criminal syndicate.
The key tenets of mafiaism, as it has developed in post-Soviet Russia, are:
Governance by a small cabal of elites that relies on a web of patronage networks to enrich itself and maintain and exercise power outside formal, legal, and constitutional institutions;
A ruling elite that is willing and able to use extrajudicial force, including lethal force, to protect its interests and eliminate threats real and imagined, at home and abroad, and can do so without accountability or fear of reprisal;
A state structure characterized by weak institutions, officially sanctioned kleptocracy, the preponderance of unwritten and informal rules, roles, and codes, what Russians call ponyatiya (understandings), and an absence of the rule of law;
An impulse to expand and control markets and territory, and a convinction that such expansion is essential for its survival because the existence of the rule of law near its borders threatens its survival;
The use of corruption as an instrument of statecraft with the aim of co-opting, controlling, bribing, and blackmailing allies and adversaries both at home and abroad;
The use of geopolitical extortion in an international protection racket by stoking instability in neighboring countries as a pretext for intervening to (re)establish order.
Official rhetoric that cloaks and justifies its predatory goals with appeals to tradition, values, religion, and history.
MAFIAISM AS IT HAS DEVELOPED under Putin has deep roots in Russian history and political culture. In her 2013 book Can Russia Modernize? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance, the scholar Alena Ledeneva described Russian politics as historically characterized by weak institutions, an intricate web of informal patronage networks, unwritten codes, and complex clan structures. In this sense, some form of mafiaism has always existed in Russia, albeit by other names.
But throughout his years in power, Putin has shaped the current system in a manner consistent with his particular background and experience. Early in his public life, Putin raised eyebrows when, speaking to reporters about Chechen separatists in September 1999, he vowed to “rub them out in the outhouse.” In the Russian language, the phrase he used, “mochit v sortire,” has a long history in gangster slang. (The verb mochit, which literally means “to wet” or “to soak,” is used by Russian gangsters in the same way Sicilian-American gangsters use “whack.”)
Although it shocked (and delighted) the public at the time, Putin’s use of gangster slang in a nationally televised press conference should not have been surprising. As deputy mayor of St. Petersburg from 1991 to 1996, he spent a lot of time with mobsters, colluding with the organized crime groups that dominated that city. Although Putin’s formal job was to oversee foreign investment, his real role was to act as a liaison between the city government and organized crime, which was so powerful at the time that the city’s most powerful gangster, Vladimir Kumarin, was known as the “night governor.” Putin collaborated closely with the city's two main crime syndicates, the Tambovskaya and Malyshevskaya groups, and assisted them in gaining control of St. Petersburg’s gambling industry, seaport, and fuel distribution network.
According to veteran Kremlin-watcher James Sherr, “In genealogical terms, Putin is the product of the KGB. But in sociological terms, he is the product of the new class that emerged in the Darwinian conditions of the 1990s: business-minded, ambitious, nationalistic, and coldly utilitarian about norms and rules.” In other words, just like a mafia boss.
It is thus not surprising that the regime Putin built is structured more like a crime family than a ruling political party or governing coalition. It is run by a tight cabal of “made men” in Putin's inner circle who oversee their own crews of underbosses and capos. These made men are led by a godfather-like figure whose main function is to settle disputes among them. Play by the syndicate’s (sometimes changing) rules and make yourself useful, and you’ll be rewarded handsomely. Step out of line and pay the price, as Prigozhin learned.
Putin’s syndicate also has its codes and its rituals. Just as La Cosa Nostra adorned itself in age-old Sicilian traditions and the venerable rites of Roman Catholicism (recall the chilling baptism scene from The Godfather), the Putin syndicate likewise cloaks itself in Russian nationalism and Orthodox Christianity. It also has a team of respectable consiglieres, who, like good mafia lawyers and accountants, attempt to give it a facade of respectability. In this sense, Tom Hagen, the Corleone family lawyer from the Godfather films, has nothing on Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
THE PUTIN SYNDICATE’S GOALS ARE SIMPLE: self-perpetuation, self-enrichment, and expansion. And this has clear security implications for the United States and its allies.
First, because it’s the tradition of patronage networks is deeply embedded in Russian political culture, Russian mafiaism will be highly resistant to change, even in the event of regime change. Communism did not die following the death of Stalin. Instead, the system Stalin built was bureaucratized and became entrenched. Western policymakers should, therefore, be highly skeptical of any apparent change in the nature of the Russian system when Putin inevitably passes from the scene. Regardless of who replaces Putin, the essence of Russian governance is likely to remain resilient.
Most importantly, by the nature of its internal logic and structure, Russian mafiaism needs to expand in order to survive. Imagine a crime syndicate that controls a city district. If the adjacent district is governed by the rule of law, with good cops, law-abiding citizens, and honest prosecutors, the crime syndicate will likely seek to corrupt and co-opt them all. And if this fails, they will probably muscle in with force.
This is what happened with Ukraine. It is worth nothing that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which began in 2014 (not 2022), was sparked by Ukraine’s desire to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, a vital step toward eventual membership. Such a development would establish more transparent and accountable governance in a neighborhood the Putin syndicate believes it needs to control. The same logic applies to other former Soviet states such as Georgia and Moldova.
The Putin syndicate will seek to expand until it meets immovable resistance in the form of solid and stable democracies, governed by the rule of law and embedded in Western institutions.
A decisive victory for Ukraine over Putin’s invading army is a necessary but not sufficient condition to address the security threat posed by Russian mafiaism. Constricting the Kremlin mafia will also require establishing strong and resilient democracies, embedded in the European Union and protected by NATO security guarantees, on Russia’s borders. It’s the only way to make the neighborhood safe from the Putin crime syndicate.
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