The definition of organized crime used in this article is that it supplies goods and services prohibited by law or in shortage through a well-organized and disciplined criminal society with organizational succession, structural division, and a hierarchy of criminal functions and groups, using violence and corruption to gain power and profit. Organized crime in the former USSR has differed from that in the West. In the former USSR, organized crime figures occupied key positions within the state bureaucracy. Identification with government bureaucracy allowed criminal entrepreneurs to conceal large-scale larcenies they had committed through bribes and tampering with documents at their disposal. They have sometimes been called white-collar gangsters. In the West, on the other hand, organized criminal enterprises do not, with some exceptions, hold governmental positions. American criminologist James Finckenauer has projected that as the economy of the former USSR shifts from public to private enterprises, the nature of organized crime will shift from a white-collar context to a more Westernized form of organized crime. An increase in the supply of legitimate goods and services should result in a decrease in the black market and in the amount of white- collar crime in the state bureaucracy. A decrease in the size and scope of the state-run economy should result in a decrease in white-collar crime by state employees. The author of this article, a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, agrees with this assessment. 5 notes and 24 references