Empire of Terror by Mark D. Silinsky

Author:Mark D. Silinsky [Silinsky, Mark D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS026020 History / Middle East / Iran, POL059000 Political Science / World / Middle Eastern, POL042030 Political Science / Political Ideologies / Fascism & Totalitarianism
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

The Great Profiteers

Profiteering is common to both developed and underdeveloped economies, and in some countries, it is systemic. This was the case in the waning days of the Soviet Union and during the Third Reich and in Iran today. A Russian mafia came into being in the eighteenth century as a group of bandits.43 In Lenin’s and Stalin’s Soviet Union, it was difficult for criminals to organize enduring, large-scale syndicates, but there was always a shadow economy. In the late twentieth-century Russia, some former Soviet intelligence and security personnel moved into organized crime.44

In Nazi Germany, there was vast corruption in ruling circles. The government gave Goering, Goebbels, Hitler, and many leading generals large estates. The historian Richard Evans has called the Third Reich both a dictatorship and a kleptocracy. Leaders fought among themselves over the booty. The corruption became the target of jokes as civilian morale plummeted. There were many popular jokes about Nazi corruption: “What is a reactionary? Someone who has a well-paid job that a Nazi wants.”45 There are similar jokes, with a cultural spin, in Iran today.

Many Iranians today can empathize with the fears and frustrations of Russians and Germans at the shakedowns and bribes endured in earlier decades. The NGO Transparency International characterizes Iran’s economy as highly corrupt and cites the substantial involvement of the Guards in shadow transactions.46 Long involved in the black market and smuggling various illegal goods, including weapons, the Guards also have a large stake in the illicit narcotics industry.47

In August 2018, in response to public demand for greater accountability, Ayatollah Khamenei created special courts to try suspects for corruption. Several of those tried were directly tied to the Guards. In December 2018 Babak Zanjani was sentenced to death for embezzling money earned from black market oil exports sanctioned by the government; he was a middleman, selling Iranian oil through companies mainly affiliated with the Guards.48

Another was Vahid Mazloomin, known as the “Sultan of Gold Coins,” who was convicted of “corruption on earth through sabotage in the economic system” and for creating an illegal trade network in foreign currency and gold coins.49 In November 2018 he and another man convicted of corruption were executed by hanging. A third execution followed this in December 2018 in which the “Sultan of Bitumen,” a substance used in making asphalt, was executed.50

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