Giuseppe Genco Russo

Italian mafioso and politician (1893–1976)

Giuseppe Genco Russo (26 January 1893 – 18 March 1976) was an Italian mafioso who was the boss of Mussomeli in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily. Genco Russo, also known as "Zi Peppi Jencu", was an uncouth, sly, semi literate thug with excellent political connections. A vulgar man, as he used to spit on the floor no matter who was present, he was often photographed with bishops, bankers, civil servants and politicians. He was considered to be the arbiter of Mafia politics, and was regarded as the successor of Calogero Vizzini, who had died in 1954. Although by then a wealthy landowner and politician as a member of Christian Democracy (DC), Genco Russo still kept his mule in the house and the toilet outside, which was little more than a hole in the ground with a stone for a seat and no walls or door according to Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta. Traditional mafiosi like Genco Russo and Calogero Vizzini, the Sicilian Mafia bosses in the years between the two world wars until the 1950s and 1960s, were the archetypes of the "man of honour" of a bygone age, as a social intermediary and a man standing for order and peace. Although they used violence to establish their position in the first phase of their careers, in the second stage they limited recourse to violence, turned to primarily legal sources of gain, and exercised their power in an open and legitimate fashion and became "[men] of order".

Genco Russo was born on 26 January 1893 in Mussomeli, Sicily, of very humble origin. His father was a simple peasant. At one time, he was just a beggar, a fellow villager said about him. In his youth, he was forced to work as a goatherd on the large Polizzello estate owned by the noble Lanza Branciforti family. He started his criminal career as a juvenile highway robber, rustling cattle and sheep. Through a career of violence stretching from the 1920s to the 1940s, he established his position as a mafioso, or "man of honour" as it is called within the Mafia. Until 1934, Genco Russo officially held no significant land holdings. As caretaker and lease holder (gabelotto or bailiff), he controlled part of an estate and was an associate in a cooperative that controlled another. As associate of a cooperative of ex combatants, he also had a share in the Polizzello estate. He ruled the cooperative through intimidation and threats, while at the same time he kept working as labourer on the fields. In 1944, the court granted Genco Russo a decree of rehabilitation for his one conviction, thereby allowing him "to recreate a moral and social virginity, acquiring a respectability which will permit him to undertake even political activity."

Since 1944, Genco Russo was to face no more criminal charges. Police files described him as a "man of order". Both Genco Russo and Calogero Vizzini organized peasant cooperatives during both post war periods, through which they deflected the appeal of the left wing political parties, maintained their hold over the peasants, and guaranteed their own continued access to the land. When land reform was finally enacted in 1950, mafiosi were in a position to perform their traditional role of brokerage between the peasants, the landlords, and the state. They exploited the intense land hunger of the peasants, gained concessions from the landlords in return for limiting the impact of the reform, and made substantial profits from their mediation in land sales. A local peasant described to the social activist Danilo Dolci how Genco Russo's reputation changed. He said: "He is constantly in contact with priests, priests go to his place, and he goes to the bank – which is always run by priests – the bank director is a priest, the bank has always been the priests' affair. Spending time with this sort of person has changed him, and now the police treat him with great respect, they greet him when they see him and go out of their way to show their regard for him. He wears better clothes today, and the marshal goes up to him and takes him by the hand, calls him Cavaliere during the election campaign, he went and had dinner with Zaccagnini, the Minister, and with Lanza, the Deputy – the three of them together – they had dinner and then they came out arm in arm."

Persecution by the Italian Fascist authorities proved a blessing in disguise when the regime of Benito Mussolini was toppled and the Allies of World War II military invaded Sicily in July 1943 (Operation Husky). The Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) looking for anti fascist notables to replace Fascist authorities made Genco Russo mayor of his hometown Mussomeli. Coordinating the AMGOT effort was the former lieutenant governor of New York, Colonel Charles Poletti, whom Lucky Luciano once described as "one of our good friends". Initially, Genco Russo's political activity was in support for the separatist and monarchist causes (he was awarded the honorific title of Cavaliere della Corona d'Italia in 1946), He became a local DC leader and town councillor in the 1960s. In 1962 he was forced to step down after he was denounced in the press.

Genco Russo was considered to be the heir of Calogero Vizzini when Don Calò died in 1954. Genco Russo had been at the right hand side of Don Calò's bier, the ancient sign that the heir apparent was taking the place of the deceased. In the media, both mafiosi were often depicted as the "boss of bosses" (capo di tutti i capi), although such a position does not exist in the loose structure of the Mafia. According to Antonino Calderone, a Mafia turncoat (pentito), Genco Russo never had been the boss of Cosa Nostra, the real name of the Mafia. The notoriety of Genco Russo was not looked upon well by other mafiosi. Like Vizzini, he exposed himself too much, giving interviews and getting photographed. Genco Russo was present at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes Mafia meeting, which was a series of meetings between top American and Sicilian mafiosi that took place in Palermo between 12 and 16 October 1957. Joseph Bonanno, Carmine Galante, and Lucky Luciano were among the American mafiosi present, while among the Sicilian side there were, apart from Genco Russo, Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, his cousin Salvatore "The Engineer" Greco, Angelo La Barbera, Gaetano Badalamenti, Totò Minore, and Tommaso Buscetta. One of the outcomes of this meeting was that the Mafia composed its first Sicilian Mafia Commission and appointed "Ciaschiteddu" Greco as its "primus interpares". In the aftermath of the First Mafia War in 1962–1963 and the Ciaculli massacre that prompted the first concerted anti Mafia efforts by the state in post war Italy through the Antimafia Commission, Genco Russo was among the many mafiosi arrested on 6 February 1964, when he turned himself in. He was often seen with Sicily's DC deputy Calogero Volpe [it] and Antonino Pietro Gullotti, the future Minister of Public Works, was photographed hand in hand with Genco Russo at the time when he was secretary for the DC in Sicily. All of this was duly recorded by the Antimafia Commission.

His forced retirement as town councillor of Mussomeli, his arrest and years of confinement initiated the decline of Genco Russo's power. Within the Mafia, a new generation of mafiosi was coming to the forefront. Genco Russo represented the old rural and semi feudal Mafia that based their power on access to land openly acknowledged community power. The new generation was more entrepreneurial and made their money with cigarette smuggling, drug trafficking, skimming off public contracts, and speculating in real estate. The fact that Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, a representative of the Palermo based Mafia, was made secretary of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission and not Genco Russo was a clear sign that his influence was limited. Genco Russo probably only was present at the Grand Hotel des Palmes Mafia meeting in 1957 because Santo Sorge, one of his relatives from the United States, was there as well. Genco Russo died peacefully at the age of 83 in March 1976 from a pulmonary emphysema. At the time of his death, he possessed 147,000 hectares of land in several holdings around Caltanissetta, Canicattì, and Casteltermini through front men and family members.