Giuseppe Genco Russo (26 January 1893 – 18 March 1976) was a Sicilian Mafia boss from 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 January 26, 1893, in Mussomeli, Sicily, into a life of deep poverty. His father was a peasant, and, according to one local, Russo himself had once been little more than a beggar. As a young boy, he had to work as a goatherd on the vast Polizzello estate, which belonged to the aristocratic Lanza Branciforti family. He began his criminal life early, engaging in juvenile highway robbery and livestock theft, rustling cattle and sheep. From the 1920s through the 1940s, he embarked on a "career of violence" to climb the ranks, eventually securing his status as a mafioso — or a "man of honour," as the Mafia calls it.
From 1918 to 1922, Genco Russo served in the military, leaving a record of "rebellious behaviour and impatience to discipline". In a 1927 report by the police chief of Caltanissetta, he was described as "a mafioso that acquired a respectable financial position out of nothing" and on the countryside people feared him. In 1929, he married a local girl; four years later, his first son Vincenzo was born. Best man at the baptism was fellow mafioso Calogero Vizzini, who would also be the witness at the marriage of Vincenzo in 1950 together with Rosario Lanza, the president of the Sicilian Regional Assembly.
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 an 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 a labourer in the fields.
Under Fascist rule in Italy, when the regime launched a crackdown on the Mafia, Genco Russo was repeatedly arrested on a range of charges, including theft, extortion, involvement in a criminal organization, and responsibility for 11 murders and several attempted murders. Yet, with only one exception, he was consistently acquitted due to "insufficient evidence", which was the mark of a successful mafioso showing his power to intimidate potential witnesses and enforce the law of silence (omertà).
In 1929, the National Fascist Party prefect Cesare Mori arrested him with 331 other mafiosi during a massive raid. In 1928 he was acquitted for lack of evidence by the prosecution of four murders, robberies and extortion and a year before, in 1927, he was acquitted of criminal conspiracy. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for criminal association, later reduced to three years, and submitted to special surveillance between 1934 and 1938. In 1944, Genco Russo was officially granted a decree of rehabilitation by the court for his sole conviction, thereby allowing him "to recreate a moral and social virginity, acquiring a respectability which will permit him to undertake even political activity."
From man of honour to man of order
From 1944, Genco Russo was to face no more criminal charges. Police files described him as a "man of order". Once established, the mafioso Genco Russo changed his original behaviour as "man of honour" to become a "man of order", inserting himself in public life and looking for a political position. His integration into the official power elite proceeded rapidly. After World War II, Genco Russo managed to control two large estates, one being the Polizzello estate where he once herded the goats. The princes of Lanza Branciforti di Trabia made him gabelotto (bailiff) of the domain that measured 2,000 hectares or 20 km2.
Both Genco Russo and Calogero Vizzini established peasant cooperatives in the aftermath of both world wars. These cooperatives served to undermine the influence of left-wing political movements, reinforce their control over the rural population, and secure continued access to land. When land reform was finally introduced in 1950 with the "Gullo law" – named after the former Minister of Agriculture Fausto Gullo – the mafiosi benefitted since they were well positioned to assume their traditional role as intermediaries between peasants, landlords, and the state. They took advantage of the peasants' desperation for land, brokered deals that secured concessions from landlords by softening the reform's effects, and profited significantly from mediating land transactions. In the 1940s, Genco Russo and his followers controlled the rural savings bank, Cassa Rurale in Mussomeli, leaving access to the money market partly in the hands of the Mafia.
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 of the separatist and monarchist causes (he was awarded the honorific title of Cavaliere della Corona d'Italia in 1946), and ultimately for the DC party. During the crucial 1948 Italian general election that would decide on Italy's post-war future, Genco Russo and Calogero Vizzini sat at the same table with leading DC politicians, attending an electoral lunch. In 1950, when Genco Russo's oldest son married, Don Calò Vizzini was a witness at the ceremony, just as the DC member Rosario Lanza, the president of the Sicilian Regional Assembly. He became a local DC leader and town councillor in the 1960s, but in 1962 he was forced to step down after he was denounced in the press.