Witwatersrand townships, present day

Preface

      THIS BOOK IS THE FIRST attempt to write a comprehensive history of an African criminal society known as the Marashea, or “Russians,” from its inception in the 1940s to the present.¹ It covers the formation of the association in the townships and mining compounds of the Witwatersrand, the massive street battles of the 1950s, and the government’s forced removal schemes that dispersed the Russians from some of their urban strongholds during this same period.² These original groups of Marashea drew their strength from Basotho migrants who worked and lived on the Johannesburg area mines, as well as those who resided in the townships and were employed in the city.³ The gold-mining industry’s expansion into the far West Rand and Free State during the 1950s and 1960s, coupled with the Aliens Control Act of 1963 (which made it illegal for the vast majority of Basotho migrants to work in South Africa outside the agricultural and mining sectors), resulted in a Marashea migration that shifted Russian power from the Rand to the townships and informal settlements surrounding the emerging gold mines. The Marashea remains a powerful force in many of South Africa’s gold mining areas.

      Newspapers and archival documents proved to be valuable source materials but are limited in the range of issues they address. Police, mining, and township officials tended to focus on the disruption to order that Russian activities caused, and the Marashea came to public notice almost exclusively as a result of their involvement in violence. Newspapers intended for white readership rarely mentioned Marashea because, except for the most spectacular instances of violence, their activities did not impinge on the white world. African newspapers reported on collective violence, robberies, and court appearances and typically condemned the gangs as primitive tribal thugs. This was the public face of the Marashea.

      Archival sources were useful in providing government and mining officials’ views of the Marashea, as well as supplying dates, casualty figures, and arrest records for specific events. In the archival records, the Marashea appear as a nuisance in the townships and mines—because of their involvement in street battles, faction fights, murders, and robberies—but not as a political threat to the state. Instead, they are depicted as tribal Africans untainted by communist or other revolutionary ideology, with no grievances against whites and no political agenda. Mining officials expressed occasional concern over Russian violence that threatened to disrupt mining operations, but the gangs did not challenge white authority on the mines. White commentators sometimes characterized the Marashea as murderous thugs