in Stalinist Russia, it was even more so, the Bratva prevailed in the black markets, and this led to the rise of characters ike this fellow
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/archive/jury-acquits-yaponchik-of-murder
who must have felt to the residents of Brighton Beach like Baba Yaga, he was utlimately safer in the states, thats the Sotnetvo branch, which considers itself at te pinnacle of Vory y Vor, Thieves World, but they have spread to France to Germany, to the southern spain, not only the Moscow based but the St Petersburg based Tambov, which has allegedly ties to Putin, along with 120 other mobs from around the World,

1992. The Russian “mafia” long predates Communism and spread throughout the world after the Soviet Union collapsed. They were able to step into the legal void created by the collapse of Soviet legal institutions (i. e. businessmen couldn’t enforce contracts or collect debts legally so they hired criminals to do it). And with that accession of power and money they were able to spread outside Russia.

Your question is puzzling. What are you getting at with a question about the NY legal system versus the Russian Mafia or any other Mafia? Do you think dealing with organized crime is easy? By “legal system” do you also mean the police, for example? The Mafia – the original Mafia, not the Russian one – was active in NY and also involved with longshoreman on the docks for many many years. Books have been written about this. Movies, even (see “On the Waterfront,” for example). Here’s quite a bit of information about those days, including what law enforcement tried to do about it. Much of that was well-known by New Yorkers of the era. If the Russian Mafia has taken over in recent years, I assume the conflict is not dissimilar.

Why/How did the New York legal system allow the Russian Mafia to establish such a large and powerful foothold down on the docks and in the cities around. Did this “Russian organization” come in after 1917 or was it later?

This only counterbalance to power-lust that I’m aware of is religion with a belief in after death judgement and eternal punishment/reward, coupled with a God who reads hearts and minds instead of headlines and social media. If there is no life after this one, then a person has no reason not to do whatever they can get away with for now. If there is an afterlife, and if it is eternal, it might be wiser to consider that when making decisions.

Not to argue, but proverbs are easily flipped while remaining proverbs.

All good things come to those who wait.
But time and tide wait for no man.

Santayana has a point; yet I offer:

Those who remember the past are condemned to fight the last war.

Life is complicated.

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ –George Santayana

‘Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ Winston Churchill