by James Millar
In most of the world, organized crime is primarily associated with the illicit sectors of the economy. Although post-Soviet organized crime groups have moved into the drug trade, especially since the fall of the Taliban, the vast wealth of Russian organized crime derives from its involvement in the legitimate economy, including important sectors like banking, real estate, transport, shipping, and heavy industry, especially aluminum production. Involvement in the legitimate economy does not mean that the crime groups have been legitimized, for they continue to operate with illegitimate tactics even in the legitimate economy. For example, organized criminals are known to intimidate minority shareholders of companies in which they own large blocks of shares and to use violence against business competitors.
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Russian anti-Mafia investigators perform a routine ID check at a Moscow market. © PETER BLAKELY/CORBIS SABA
Crime groups also engage in automobile, drug, and arms smuggling. The involvement of former military personnel has given particular significance to sales of military technology to foreign crime groups. Weapons obtained from Russian crime groups have been used in armed conflicts in many parts of the world, including Africa and the Balkans. Foreign crime groups, especially in Asia, see Russia as a new source of supply for weapons.
There is, in addition, a significant trade in stolen automobiles between Western Europe and the European parts of Russia. From Irkutsk west to Vladivostok, the cars on the road are predominantly Japanese, some of them stolen from their owners.
Tens of thousands of women have been trafficked abroad, often sold to foreign crime groups that in turn traffic them to more distant locales. Women are trafficked from all over Russia by small-scale criminal businesses and much larger entrepreneurs via an elaborate system of recruitment, transport facilitators, and protectors of the trafficking networks. Despite prevention campaigns, human trafficking is a significant revenue source for Russian organized crime.
Russia’s vast natural resources are much exploited by crime groups. Many of the commodities handled by criminals are not traded in the legitimate economy. These include endangered species, timber not authorized for harvest, and radioactive minerals subject to international regulation.
Despite the government’s repeated pledges to fight organized crime, the leaders of the criminal organizations and the government officials who facilitate their activities operate with almost total impunity. Pervasive corruption in the criminal justice system has impeded the prosecution of Russian organized criminals both domestically and internationally. Thus organized crime will continue to be a serious problem for the Russian state and the international community. See also: MAFIA CAPITALISM; PRIVATIZATION
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Handelman, Stephen. (1987). Comrade Criminal: Russia’s New Mafiya. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Satter, David. (2003). Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Shelley, Louise. (1996). “Post-Soviet Organized Crime: A New Form of Authoritarianism.” Transnational Organized Crime 2 (2/3):122-138. Volkov, Vadim. (2002). Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. Williams, Phil, ed. (1997). Russian Organized Crime: The New Threat. Portland, OR: Frank Cass.
LOUISE SHELLEY
See also: COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION; POLITBURO
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gill, Graham. (1990). The Origins of the Stalinist Political System. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Howlett, Jana; Khlevniuk, Oleg; Kosheleva, Ludmila; and Rogavia, Larisa. (1996). “The CPSU’s Top Bodies under Stalin: Their Operational Records and Structures of Command.” Stalin-Era Research and Archives Project, Working paper No.1. Toronto: Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto.
CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS
ORGNABOR See ADMINISTRATION FOR ORGANIZED RECRUITMENT.
ORGBURO
The organizational bureau (or Orgburo) was one of the most important organs in the CPSU after the Politburo. The Orgburo was created in 1919 and had the power to make key decisions about the organizational work of the Party. The key role of the Orgburo was to make all the important decisions of an administrative and personnel nature by supervising the work of local Party committees and organizations and overseeing personnel appointments. For instance, the Orgburo had the power to select and allocate Party cadres. The Orgburo was elected at plenary meetings of the Central Committee. There was a great degree of overlap between the Politburo and the Orgburo with many key Party figures being members of both organs. In its early days Josef V. Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich were all Orgburo members. The Politburo often confirmed Orgburo decisions, but it also had the power to veto or rescind them. Nevertheless, the Orgburo was extremely powerful in the 1920s and retained significant scope for autonomous action until its functions, responsibilities, and powers were transferred to the Secretariat in 1952.
Since the declassification of Soviet archives, scholars can now access the protocols of the Communist Party’s Orgburo, the transcripts of many of its meetings, and all of the preparatory documentation. The latter are crucial insofar as they give scholars insight into Party life from the New Economic Policy period until the end of the Stalin era.
ORLOVA, LYUBOV PETROVNA
(1902-1975), film actress.
The most beloved movie actress of the 1930s, Lyubov Petrovna Orlova trained as a singer and dancer in Moscow. She began her career in musical theater in 1926 and made her film debut in 1934. Although she worked with other Soviet directors, Orlova’s personal and professional partnership with Grigory Alexandrov led to her greatest successes on screen. As the star of Alexandrov’s four wildly successful musical comedies-The Jolly Fellows (1934), The Circus (1936), Volga-Volga (1938), and The Shining Path (1940)-Orlova became a household name in the USSR.
Although in her early thirties when she began her movie career, Orlova nonetheless specialized in ingenue parts. She was the role model for a generation of Soviet women. They admired her wholesome good looks, her energy, her cheeriness, her zest for life, and her spunkiness in the face of adversity. She was also said to be Stalin’s favorite actress, not surprising given his love for movie musicals. Interestingly, given Orlova’s importance as the cinematic exemplar of Soviet womanhood, she also played Americans several times in her career. The most famous example was her portrayal in The Circus of Marion Dixon, the entertainer who fled the United States with her mixed-race child, but also worth noting is her role as “Janet Sherwood” in Alexandrov’s Meeting on the Elba (1949).
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ORLOV, GRIGORY GRIGORIEVICH
In 1950 Orlova was honored as a People’s Artist of the USSR, her nation’s top prize for artistic achievement, but she acted in only a few pictures after that, and died in 1975. In 1983 Orlova’s husband, Grigory Alexandrov, produced a documentary about her life entitled Liubov Orlova. See also: ALEXANDROV, GRIGORY ALEXANDROVICH; MOTION PICTURES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kenez, Peter. (2001). Cinema and Soviet Society from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin. London: I. B. Tauris.
DENISE J. YOUNGBLOOD
ORLOV, GRIGORY GRIGORIEVICH
(1734-1783), count, prince of the Holy Roman Empire, soldier, statesman, imperial favorite.
Second eldest of five brothers born to a Petrine officer and official, Grigory Orlov had looks, size, and strength. His early years are little known before he won distinction at the battle of Zorndorf in 1758, where he fought the Prussians despite three wounds. He accompanied Count Schwerin and captured Prussian adjutant to St. Petersburg, where both met the “Young Court” of Grand Princess Catherine and Crown Prince Peter Fyodorovich. In the capital Orlov gained repute by an affair with the beautiful mistress of Count Pyotr Shuvalov. By 1760 intimacy with Catherine facilitated promotion to captain of the Izmailovsky Guards and paymaster of the artiller
y, crucial posts in Catherine’s coup of July 11, 1762. Two months earlier she had secretly delivered their son, Alexei Grigorievich Bo-brinskoi (1762-1813).
The Orlov brothers were liberally rewarded by the new regime. All became counts of the Russian Empire. Grigory became major general, chamberlain, and adjutant general with the Order of Alexander Nevsky, a sword with diamonds, and oversight of the coronation. He figured prominently in the reign as master of ordnance, director general of engineers, chief of cavalry forces, and president of the Office of Trusteeship for Foreign Colonists. Such political connections with Catherine did not bring marriage, however, because of opposition at court and her reluctance. He patronized many individuals and institutions, such as the scientist polymath Lomonosov, the Imperial Free Economic Society, the Legislative Commission of 1767-1768, and projects to reform serfdom. He publicly (and unsuccessfully) invited Jean-Jacques Rousseau to take refuge in Russia. He sat on the new seven-member imperial council established in 1768 to coordinate foreign and military policy in the Russo-Turkish war, where he favored a forward policy, volunteering his brother Alexei to command the Baltic fleet in Mediterranean operations.
This conflict spawned an incursion of bubonic plague culminating in the collapse of Moscow amid riots in late September 1771. Orlov volunteered to head relief efforts, restored order, reinforced an-tiplague efforts, and punished the rioters. Projecting composure in public, Orlov privately doubted success until freezing weather finally arrived. He was triumphantly received by Catherine at Tsarskoye Selo in mid-December with a gold medal and a triumphal arch hailing his bravery.
In 1772 Orlov headed the Russian delegation to negotiate with the Turks at Focsani, but he broke off the talks when his terms were rejected and, learning of his replacement in Catherine’s favor, rushed back to Russia only to be barred from court. From his Gatchina estate he negotiated a settlement: a pension of 150,000 rubles, 100,000 for a house, 10,000 serfs, and the title of prince of the Holy Roman Empire. He kept away from court until May 1773, maintaining cordial relations with Catherine, on whom he bestowed an enormous diamond that she placed in the imperial scepter (and actually paid for). He supported her amid the crisis of Paul’s majority and the Pugachev Revolt. With Potemkin’s emergence as favorite in early 1774, however, Orlov and Catherine had a stormy falling out; he withdrew from public life and traveled abroad.
Upon return to Russia Orlov married his young cousin, Ekaterina Nikolayevna Zinovieva (1758-1781), whom the empress appointed lady-in-waiting and awarded the Order of Saint Catherine. She died of consumption in Lausanne, hastening Orlov’s slide into insanity before death. Orlov’s career advertised the rewards of imperial favor and consolidated the family’s aristocratic eminence. See also: CATHERINE II; MILITARY, IMPERIAL ERA; RUSSO-TURKISH WARS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, John T. (1989). Catherine the Great: Life and Legend. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Alexander, John T. (2003). Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia: Public Health and Urban Disaster, rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Baran, Thomas. (2002). Russia Reads Rousseau, 1762-1825. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Montefiore, Simon Sebag. (2000). Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
JOHN T. ALEXANDER
ORTHODOXY
Orthodoxy has been an integral part of Russian civilization from the tenth century to the present.
The word Orthodox means right belief, right practice, or right worship. Also referred to as Russian Orthodoxy or Eastern Orthodoxy, all three terms are synonymous in Orthodox self-understanding. Orthodoxy uses the vernacular language of its adherents, but its beliefs and liturgy are independent of the language used. The Russian Church is Eastern Orthodox because it maintains sacramental ties (intercommunion) with the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople. This differentiates it from Oriental Orthodox groups such as the Nestorians, Monophysites, and Jacobites who broke with Byzantium over doctrinal and cultural differences between the fifth and eighth centuries. The distinctive characteristics of Orthodoxy in comparison with other expressions of Christianity explain some unique features of Russian historical development.
THEOLOGY
Orthodox theology is generally characterized by a strong emphasis on incarnation. It upholds Christian dogma related to the life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as expressed through Christian tradition shaped by the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), the earliest teachings of the Christian leaders in the second to fourth centuries (the Church Fathers), and the decisions of seven ecumenical or all-church councils held between the fourth and eighth centuries. God is understood to be creator of the universe and a single being who finds expression in the Trinity or three persons-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although the essence of God is unknowable to human beings, they can gain knowledge of God through nature, the revelation of Christ, and Christian tradition. God is described as eternal, perfectly good, omniscient, perfectly righteous, almighty, and omnipresent.
Human beings are described as possessing both body and soul and having been originally made in the image and likeness of God. The image of God remains, although the divine likeness is seen as corrupted by original sin, a spiritual disease inherited from Adam and Eve, the first humans. Thus, Orthodox doctrine does not support the idea of total human depravity as defined by the fourth-century western theologian St. Augustine of Hippo. The goal of human existence in Orthodox theology is deification, often described using the Greek term theosis. Humans are understood to be striving for the restoration of the divine likeness, becoming fully human and divine following the example of Christ.
Incarnational theology is expressed in popular practice as well as in dogma. Holy images or icons express incarnation through religious paintings that provide a window into the redeemed creation. The subjects of icons are God, Jesus, biblical scenes, the lives of saints, and the Virgin Mary, who is referred to as Theotokos (God bearer). Icons are holy objects that are always venerated for the images they represent. Some icons also are believed to have divine power to protect or heal. Miracle-working icons are sites of divine immanence, where the energies of God are physically accessible to the Orthodox believer. Immanence is also seen in holy relics, graves, and even natural objects such as rocks, fountains, lakes, and streams.
LITURGY AND WORSHIP
The Orthodox faith is expressed through the Divine Liturgy-a term synonymous with Eucharist, Mass, or Holy Communion in Western Christianity-and other services. All Orthodox services center around the prayers of the faithful; for Orthodox believers, worship is communal prayer. Monasticism had a particularly strong influence on the Russian liturgical tradition. From the sixteenth century, worship in parish churches imitated the long, complex forms found in monasteries. The structure of the Orthodox liturgy has unbroken continuity with the earliest forms of Christian worship and has remained basically unchanged since the ninth century, just before the conversion of Russia. Russian as a written language traces its origins to the work of two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, who were missionaries to the Slavs in the ninth century. The Russian Orthodox Church has maintained the lan1118
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guage and forms of worship that it received from Byzantium during the tenth century, including the use of Old Church Slavic as a liturgical language. As a result, the Russian Orthodox liturgy sounds archaic and at times even incomprehensible to modern Russians.
Orthodox worship includes the seven sacraments defined by the Roman Catholic Church (baptism, chrismation, Eucharist, repentance, ordination, marriage, and anointing of the sick). Orthodox theologians frequently note, however, that their church’s sacramental life is not limited to those seven rites. Many other acts, such as monastic tonsure, are understood to have a sacramental quality. Baptism is the rite of initiation, performed on infants and adults by immersion. Chrismation, also known as confirmation in the West, involves being anointed with ho
ly oil and signifies reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Eucharist lacks any theological interpretation of transubstantiation or con-substantiation. Instead, the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is explained as a mystery beyond human understanding. Communicants receive both bread and wine, which are mixed together in the chalice and served to them by the priest on a spoon. Repentance involves confession of sin to a priest followed by an act of penance (in Russian, epitimia). Ordination is the sacrament for inducting men into clerical orders. The Orthodox ceremony of marriage is distinctive in its use of crowns placed on the heads of the bride and groom. Anointing of the sick, as known as unction, is not reserved for those who are dying but can be used for anyone who is suffering and seeks divine healing.
CLERGY
Orthodox believers are served by three types of clergy: bishops, priests, and deacons. All clergy are male and are differentiated by the color of their liturgical vestments, which are in turn related to their form of ecclesiastical service. Married priests and deacons who serve in parishes are called the white clergy (beloye dukhovenstvo), while those who take monastic vows are known as the black clergy (chernoye dukhovenstvo). Men who wish to marry must do so before being ordained. They cannot remarry, either before or after ordination, and their wives cannot have been married previously.