Organised Crime

[The Idler]

What has been the experience of organised crime in socialist societies compared to capitalist ones? Cuba and the USSR for example. Or even in fascist regimes, do they flourish? JC1 posted a topic entitled Gangs a year or two ago if you do a search for it.

[cop an Attitude]

I think that it would decrease in a socalist or communist society. most people in organized crime tend to have capitalist ideals. I'm not just saying this as an anitcapitalist statement but as fact. How could they obtain such wealth if it was regulated by the goverment. They couldn't extort any businesses which would put a major debt in their pockets. Vices may still be handled but I would think that with such leftist ideas the laws would be more lenient, allowing things that were only offered by organized crime previously. Black trades would also go down (although some argue this), due to the fact that people would be supplied with everything anyways. As for facism, I sense that the goverment would want all the power and wouldn't stand for any organized crime (compitition). ether that or the people wouldn't put up with opression from both sides.

[Labor Shall Rule]

The Russian mob didn't appear until the privatization started, simply because 'organized' criminal syndicates desperately need access to credit, the unhampered ability to operate private firms with little to no intervention, relaxed laws and legal ramifications for criminal acts, and open, unchecked borders.

[Yehuda Stern]

Not true - in fact, a very vast black market developed in Russia from the 1970s onwards. It might be more accurate to say that it didn't develop until the economic crisis on that time, which affected Russia along with the rest of the capitalist world.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Not true - in fact, a very vast black market developed in Russia from the 1970s onwards. It might be more accurate to say that it didn't develop until the economic crisis on that time, which affected Russia along with the rest of the capitalist world.

Yes, but this often involved small circles of tsekhoviki (illegal employers) that would pay off bureaucrats. They were described as the 'mafiya', but they often lacked a formal structure, and they didn't have the ability to use the violence that they use today.

They grew into nation-wide syndicates because they could export and exchange rubles into hard currency, and found "supportive" state banks, factories, and stores to provide a lucrative source of income for illegal activities. Kvantrishvili was a 'legitimate' businessmen in the years following the collapse - yet, for example - he was able to take his 'legitimate' cash taken from the exploitation of labor and open drug and arms supply routes.

The divide between legal and 'illegal' capitalists is not that vast. The anti-Mafia movement in Sicily was not suprisingly lead by Marxists - it goes to show that the only true way to 'stop crime' is taking a class approach.

[grok]

I think it's vitally important that the Western Left discuss how to deal with organized crime on their own turf, first and foremost. It's quite apparent that those other gangster elements -- the imperialist police and military -- are going to use these lumpen capitalist and other backwards forces against the Left as one of their "first lines of defence" in the class-struggle.

[rararoadrunner]

The question of the politicisation of criminal gangs (and devolution of revolutionary orgs into criminal gangs as well), it seems to me, is bound up with both the objective social conditions that bring these changes about...and the political astuteness of those who understand this and act upon it.

Let's look first at the politicisation of criminal gangs: this seems to happen where anarchy or near-anarchy reigns.

On the revolutionary side, we see Mexican "gangster" Francisco "Pancho" Villa, and Chinese "gangster" Chu Teh politicised in this manner: they were outlaws in lawless lands who turned decisively against the tyranny in those lands in favour of what they understood to be a revolutionary course (regardless of whether we, in hindsight, agree with their assesment or not); on the reactionary side, we see German "gangsters" harnessed politically by Adolf Hitler's SA and SS.

On the other side of the coin, we see political rebels, from Colombia's M-19, to quite a few ASU's of the Provisional IRA (and, even more so, their "Protestant"/Unionist counterparts in the UVF, UFF, UDA, etc), right through to the Crips, Bloods, and BGF of California, depoliticised and converted into criminal gangs with ordinary, sociopathic purposes.

In order to understand this clearly, let me put you in the following situation which is far from hypothetical for many:

You engage in revolutionary activity, either unarmed or armed. You are arrested, tried, convicted, and thrown into prison with existing, powerful prison gangs, which assume jurisdiction over you, quite apart from any choice on your part, based upon their racial identification of you (and, in the case of the Mexican Mafia vs. Nuestra Famalia in California, your region of origin as well).

How do you and your comrades advance the cause inside, given such conditions? What if your revolutionary org had a mixed-race membership, and opposing gangs assumed jurisdiction over your members? How would you stay strong and grow stronger?

Now let's take this situation outside, into gang-infested hoods: how do you effectively compete with both armed gangs and the armed state-security apparatus for the allegience of those they both seek to woo? The "legal" police and military offer jobs and relative security; the gangs are more independent and offer more money, provided you are ready, willing, and able to take the greater risk membership in them entails. Both are out gunning against us revolutionaries: how do we compete? What do we have to offer that they don't?

Far from hypothetical questions for a serious revolutionary: back to you, comrades!

[ibn Bruce]

The line between revolutionary, anti-State movement and organised crime group is very thin. The kinds of things done by both often overlap. The Hung societies in China began as revolutionary movements against the Manchu, even today 'triads' have oaths of allegiance to overthrow a dynasty long gone. Similarly in Somalia, the difference between insurgents and gangs is almost non-existent. When the so called 'Islamic Youth Movement' was reigned in by the courts, they reverted to being simply a gang, albeit a powerful and shockingly brutal one.

You ask how do we compete with gangs for membership, I think maybe the more pertinent question is how does one stop a group from becoming no more than a gang at all.

[black magick hustla]

for the latter post, that is untrue. the people who murder union folks in latin america are funded by narco scum.

[black magick hustla]

communists are not criminals. groups that resort to drug trade and reduce themselves to gangsterism are not socialist groups. especially in places like mexico, i think they are scum and they are generally more brutal than the mexican state. 5000 folks die a month just because of them. fuck them and i wouldnt mind seeing the mob bosses up against the fucking wall.