World History of Organized Crime

The Russian Mafia (1x2)

: 01, 2002

"We do not have borders. That's the way I understand the business." --Ludwig Feinberg, Russian Mafioso A handful of names are given for Russian organized crime -- the Red Mafia, for instance -- but my favorite is unquestionably Redfellas. And they're a charming bunch, as you might imagine -- one FBI agent says that "the Russian mafia is the most fearsome, most treacherous, most violent of all the organized crime groups." In other words, these boys know how to have fun. The roots of Russian organized crime go back to the days under the Czar, and up through today -- that is, they were there before the Communists came to power, and survive long after the Party is over. They even managed to get the best of Lenin on occasion -- he was robbed by a bunch of highwaymen after seizing power -- but Stalin was having none of this. As he did with so many others, Stalin rounded up as many Mafiosi as he could and shipped them off to the gulag; some of them even got suckered into serving in Stalin's army during World War II, thinking it might be the way to freedom. But right back to prison they went, where they were dubbed "the bitches." Maybe this is juvenile, but the name makes for some unintentionally hilarious, overly somber narration: "Ostracized, the bitches created their own society." And there's a whole lot about the prison Bitch Wars, 1945-53. The dysfunctional Soviet economy and the corruption of the Communists made the Brezhnev regime a field day for the Redfellas, and in the post-Communist world, the Red mob poster boy is Ludwig Feinberg, who flourishes as much in Brooklyn's Little Odessa as he does back in the old country. The episode ends with an astonishingly vast bootlegging scheme -- American distilleries press cheap, strong grain alcohol, which is then dyed blue and shipped to Russia as windshield wiper fluid, avoiding high tariffs. The blue dye is then removed, and the ratgut is passed off as vodka to unsuspecting Russian consumers. Bottoms up!