Today the corruption has become a major threat for the national security. Against Russia, there are no longer individual corrupted officials and embezzlers, but a huge and powerful corruption system. As for corruption as a negative social phenomenon, it includes: the totality of all corruption acts, all corrupted officials, as well as a whole independent corruptogenic system. This system often escapes the attention of analysts. Corruption has now acquired a systemic character in Russia. Among those institutions that did not shy away from the study of the corruption phenomenon in Russia was the Law School of Far Eastern Federal University, where in 1997 the Vladivostok Center for the Study of Organized Crime was established. The Center was established in June 1997 as part of a wider initiative of American University’s Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) to create and support United Research Centers on Organized Crime in Eurasia. The Center researchers study the patterns and development of organized crime as well as methods of conquering the socially devastating manifestation of organized crime and the closely associated phenomena of corruption, money laundering, contract killings, illegal narcotics trade, etc. The Vladivostok Center has produced a large body of research, analysis, translated international literature and illuminating scholarly works; has prepared a number of books, textbooks, and academic articles, including many concerning corruption. The inefficiency of the state’s efforts to combat corruption is explained by the fact that the main corruption-causing factors remain untouched. They include deformation of the political sphere (privatization of the state, the absence of a real separation of powers, the dominance of the executive branch of government over all others, lack of necessary rotation, irremovability, lack of transparency, the presence of «shadow» power and «shadow» law).