Gangs of Russia

Is Russia a ‘mafia state’? If so, what does this mean and what are its implications? Svetlana Stephenson offers a welcome and distinctive perspective on these questions in her study of Russian youth gangs and their complex transformation—as her subtitle puts it—‘from the streets to the corridors of power’. While Stephenson traces the roots of Russia's post-Soviet gangs back to village traditions of ritualized violence, her narrative begins with the emergence of organized groups in the 1970s and 1980s. She attributes this trend, which surprised Soviet authorities, to an era of stagnation, with its declining social mobility and the disillusionment of the industrial working class. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the first steps to market transition, and rapid decay of state institutions, transformed the Russian economic, social and legal environment. Gangs evolved accordingly to become far more overtly economic agents. The emergence of cooperatives, enterprises, and later mass privatization created abundant opportunities for extortion and enrichment. The consequent proliferation of, and competition between, force-wielding groups greatly contributed to the rapid rise of violence in this period

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