Sabotage (redirected from Sabotague)

sabotage [Fr., sabot=wooden shoe; hence, to work clumsily], form of direct action by workers against employers through obstruction of work and/or lowering of plant efficiency. Methods range from peaceful slowing of production to destruction of property. In 1897, French workers adopted sabotage as a general strategy. It was also used by the syndicalists (see syndicalism) and by the Industrial Workers of the World in the United States. It has been condemned by Communists and Socialists as counterrevolutionary because it often results in a wave of repressive measures. The term has also been used, notably by Thorstein Veblen, to refer to limitation of output by businessmen to enhance profits by maintaining scarcity of goods. In wartime it connotes nonmilitary enemy activity, by either foreign agents or native sympathizers, especially the physical damage of vital industries.

See also guerrilla warfare; terrorism.

Bibliography

See E. Pouget, Sabotage (1910, tr. 1913); S. B. Mathewson, Restriction of Output among Unorganized Workers (1931); E. Feit, Urban Revolt in South Africa, 1960–1964: A Case Study (1971).

---

sabotage

The deliberate damage to equipment or information. For example, Web site defacement is an example of information sabotage.

---

sabotage [′sab·ə‚täzh]

(ordnance)

Action by enemy agents or sympathizers with intent to stop or otherwise hinder a nation's war effort or to interfere with or obstruct the defense of a nation.

---

Sabotage 

(Russian, diversiia from the Latin diversio, deflection, distraction). (1) Subversive actions (arson, demolition) carried out by specially trained agents or groups in time of war or peace on the territory of a particular state or in territory occupied by an enemy for the purpose of weakening his economic and military strength and his morale.

(2) Under Soviet criminal law, sabotage is an especially dangerous crime against the state (art. 5, Law on Criminal Responsibility for Crimes Against the State of 1958; art. 68, Criminal Code of the RSFSR). An act of sabotage is intended to cause substantial harm to the economic foundations of the state. It may be carried out either by destroying or damaging (by explosion, arson, or other methods) enterprises, structures, roads and means of transportation, means of communication, or other state or social property or by mass poisoning or the spreading of epidemics and epizootics for the purpose of weakening the Soviet state. It is punishable by deprivation of freedom for a term of eight to 15 years, with confiscation of property. In addition to the deprivation of freedom, exile for a term of two to five years may be prescribed. The deliberate destruction or damaging of state or social property, committed without the intention of weakening the Soviet state, is not considered sabotage and is treated as a crime against socialist property (art. 98, Criminal Code of the RSFSR).

(3) In political writing the term “ideological sabotage” is applied to the provocative propaganda of imperialist states (by radio, television, or publications) directed against the socialist countries.

V. I. KURLIANDSKII

---

Sabotage 

the deliberate disruption of any activity; the evasion of work or its deliberately careless execution.

In Soviet criminal law, sabotage is the conscious failure to execute one’s defined duties or the deliberately careless performance of them for the purpose of weakening the Soviet state. Until 1958, Soviet law had a special norm establishing liability for sabotage. Under existing legislation, there is no provision for liability for sabotage as an independent crime, because there are practically no cases of sabotage in the USSR. Actions resembling sabotage are classified as wrecking and subversive actions.