I would say politically superior, not militarily. Similar to how Luciano took over.

He was militarily inferior to BOTH Maranzano and Masseria. He won the war cause he was a great mafia Politician and strategist. He, like the Corleonesi built a coalition of disaffected mobsters from across family lines. And like these clans, his strength was in control of a Commodity, liquor. The younger guys knew this was the future so they threw in with him. They knew they would eat well with Lucky in charge. Basically, money made Lucky powerful, not muscle.

That was the real strength of the Corleonesi. The fact that they had multiple guys in every family feeding them info on rivals, and the fact they clandestinely took control of the Cupola. So they always like, had permission for those murders. That's something that was pointed out in a couple book I read on those guys. They always took murder contracts to the Cupola, and they were always sanctioned and " Justified" , because, they behind the scenes already secured the votes from allies. They were very, very cunning. But they only had like, a FIFTEEN MAN death squad headed up by Pino Greco, who is said to have killed well over a hundred people.

See that wasn't so much a war, as a massacre. John Dickes book explains it well;

They took control of the Cupola FIRST, behind the scenes. This woulda never been possible if the other clans were eating with the Palermo families. They were too clannish, lol. Same thing happened in the early sixties with the Palermo Grecos dominating at the expense of the clans from other parts of Sicily. That's why Cavataio played em off against each other, again a lot like Luciano.


So I would say the Corleonesi were politically more astute. They were a small core group, I think there were like 40 or so of em. And something I don't think is widely known, they woulda never got anywhere if it wasn't for Leggio, who I read was FANTASTICALLY WEALTHY, like HE got powerful because of business and money too....