Sabotage

Sabotage is the intentional act of weakening a government, organization, or effort through means like disruption, destruction, or demoralization. A person who does this is called a saboteur, and they usually hide their identity to avoid legal or organizational consequences.

The word comes from the French saboter, meaning to botch or wreck. It originally referred to labor disputes where workers wearing wooden shoes called sabots disrupted production. A common but false story claims poor workers in Liège, Belgium, threw their sabots into machinery. The term first appeared in French literature in an 1808 dictionary, defined as making noise with sabots or bungling. The word sabotage itself appeared later, in an 1873–1874 dictionary, where it mainly meant making sabots. By the late 19th century, it came to mean deliberately destroying property or working slowly. In 1897, anarchist Émile Pouget wrote about "action de saboter un travail" (sabotaging work), and he published a book on the subject in 1911.

As a form of industrial action, skilled workers like the Luddites used sabotage to negotiate during labor disputes in the early 1800s. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) promoted sabotage as self-defense and direct action against unfair conditions. IWW leader Big Bill Haywood was influenced by a French railroad strike in 1910: when the government drafted strikers into the army, they returned to work but deliberately bungled tasks—misdirecting freight and delaying perishables—winning their demands. For the IWW, sabotage included any withdrawal of efficiency, like slowdowns, strikes, or working to rule. A severe example occurred in 1974 at Quebec’s Robert-Bourassa Generating Station, where workers used bulldozers to knock over generators, damage fuel tanks, and set fires, causing a year-long delay and $2 million in damage. Possible causes included union rivalry, poor conditions, and perceived arrogance from American executives.

In environmental activism, groups have used property destruction to protest ecological harm. From 1992 to late 2007, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) carried out decentralized sabotage against construction near wildlands and extractive industries, including an arson attack on a Colorado ski resort. ELF often coordinated loosely with other activists to physically delay or destroy threats to wild areas.