Research from 1976-80 on the activities of emigres from the former Soviet Union prior to their departure from the USSR indicated two types of criminals in the former USSR: the Survivors and the Connivers. Professional and media interest in this issue led to the evolution of a common conceptual framework of Russian crime and its alleged connections with the Mafia. Nevertheless, the Mafia image in the former Soviet Union has a function. The function of defining newly permitted business activities in the former USSR as Mafia organized crime and lawlessness, while continuing to participate in such activities, determines the social standard of acceptable and unacceptable behavior in a country where beating the system was part of the system. The term "Mafia" has now become a pejorative term describing anyone making money, having hard currency, or traveling in and out of the country. The term defines the new society's boundaries, however slowly. The interest in the Russian Mafia in the United States reflects this country's longstanding fascination with crime and criminals and the need for a substitute for the fading Italian Mafia mythology. It also provides journalists and the public with a relatively unthreatening, European model of crime that is appealingly seductive although quite inaccurate. 6 references