ABSTRACT
Post-Soviet organized crime represents a new form of non-state based authoritarianism. The coercive apparatus of the state the KGB and Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) has been privatized to organized crime. The Soviet period was characterized by both the personal dictatorship of Stalin and the subsequent dominance of the powerful Communist Party under different Party Secretaries. Under the authoritarianism of the Soviet Union, citizen interests were subordinated to the state and its ruling elite. State paternalism existed as the government provided for social and individual welfare, denying a role to civil society that might challenge its hegemonic control. The Soviet state maintained strict ideological controls. This resulted in central state control over film, art, mass media, and scholarship. In the USSR, the state had control over the entire economy creating a state monopoly of trade and production. Privatization of law enforcement in the socialist context has not meant the same as in western countries.
