Sabotage (pronounced sab-uh-tahzh (U) or sab-oh-tahzh (non-U))
(1) Any underhand interference with production, work etc,
in a plant, factory etc, as by enemy agents during wartime or by employees
during a trade dispute; any similar action or behavior.
(2) In military use, an act or acts with intent to
injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense of a country by
willfully injuring or destroying, or attempting to injure or destroy, any
national defense or war materiel, premises, or utilities, to include human and
natural resources.
(3) Any undermining of a cause.
(4) To injure or attack by sabotage.
1907: From the French sabotage
from saboter (to botch; to spoil
through clumsiness (originally, to strike, shake up, harry and literally “to
clatter in sabots (clog-like wooden soled shoes)”).
The noun sabotage is said to have been absorbed by
English in 1907, having been used as a French borrowing since at least
1903. The sense of the French usage was “malicious
damaging or destruction of an employer's property by workmen", a development
from the original idea of mere deliberate bungling and inefficiency as a form
of ad-hoc industrial action. Contemporary
commentators in England noted "malicious mischief" was likely the “nearest
explicit definition” of sabotage before point out “this new force in industry
and morals” was definitely something associated with the continent. As the meaning quickly shifted from mere
lethargy in the means to physically damaging the tools of production, the story
began to circulate that the origin of the word was related to instances of
disgruntled strikers (something the English were apt to ascribe as habitual to
French labour) tactic of throwing their sabots (clog-like wooden-soled shoes) into
machinery. There is no evidence this
ever happened although it was such a vivid image that the tale spread widely and
even enjoyed some currency as actual etymology but it was fake news. Instead it was in the tradition of the French
use in a variety of "bungling" senses including the poor delivery of
a speech or a poorly played piece of music, the idea of a job botched or a discordant
sound, like the clatter of many sabots on as a group walked on a hardwood
floor. The noun savate (a French method of fighting with the feet) from French savate (literally "a kind of
shoe") is attested from 1862 and although linked to footwear, is unrelated
to sabotage.
Prepared for sabotage: Lindsay Lohan in Gucci Black Patent Leather Hysteria Platform Clogs with wooden soles, Los Angeles, 2009. The car is a 2009 (fifth generation) Maserati Quattroporte leased by her father.
What sabotage was depended also from where it was
viewed. In industry it was thought to be
a substitute for striking in which the workers stayed in his place but
proceeded to do his work slowly and badly, the aim being ultimately to
displease his employer's customers and cause loss to his employer. To the still embryonic unions seeking to
organize labour, it was a reciprocal act of industrial democracy, going slow about
the means of production and distribution in response to organized capital going
slow in the matter of wages. The
extension by the military to describe the damage inflicted (especially
clandestinely) to disrupt in some way the economy by damaging military or civilian
infrastructure emerged during World War I (1914-1918). The verb sabotage (to ruin or disable
deliberately and maliciously) dates from 1912 and the noun saboteur (one who
commits sabotage) was also first noted in the same year (although it had been
used in English since 1909 as a French word); it was from the French agent noun
from saboter and the feminine form was
saboteuse.
The word exists in many European languages including Catalan (sabotatge),
Czech (sabotáž), Danish (sabotage), Dutch (sabotage), Galician (sabotaxe),
German (Sabotage), Hungarian (szabotázs), Italian (sabotaggio), Polish (sabotaż), Portuguese (sabotagem), Russian (сабота́ж) (sabotáž), Spanish (sabotaje), Swedish (sabotage)
& Turkish (sabotaj). Sabotage is so specific that
it has no direct single-word synonym although, depending on context, related
words include destruction, disruption, subversion, treachery, treason,
vandalism, cripple, destroy, disrupt, hamper, hinder, obstruct, subvert,
torpedo, undermine, vandalize, wreck, demolition, impairment, injury & disable. Sabotage is a noun & verb, sabotaged is a
verb & adjective, saboteur is a noun, sabotaging is a verb and sabotagable
is an adjectival conjecture; some sources maintain there is no plural of
sabotage and the correct form is “acts of sabotage” while others list the third-person
singular simple present indicative form as sabotages.
Franz von Papen.
Although his activities as German Military Attaché for
Washington DC during 1914-1915 would be overshadowed by his later adventures, Franz
von Papen’s (1879–1969) inept attempts at
sabotaging the Allied war effort would help introduce the word to the military
vocabulary. He attempted to disrupt the
supply of arms to the British, even setting up a munitions factory with the
intension of buying up scare commodities to deny their use by the Allies, only
to find the enemy had contracted ample quantities so his expensive activities
had no appreciable effect on the shipments.
Then his closest aide, after falling asleep on a train, left behind a
briefcase full of letters compromising Papen for his activities on behalf of
the central powers. Within days, a New
York newspaper published details of Papen’s amateurish cloak & dagger
operations including his attempt to induce workers of Austrian & German
descent employed in plants engaged in war production for the Allies to slow
down their output or damage the goods. Also
in the briefcase were copies of letters he sent revealing shipping movements.
Even this wasn’t enough for the US to expel him so he expanded
his operations, setting up a spy network to
conduct a sabotage and bombing campaign against businesses in New York owned by
citizens from the Allied nations. That
absorbed much money for little benefit but, undeterred, he became involved with
Indian nationalists living in the US, arranging with them for arms to be
shipped to India where he hoped a revolt against the Raj might be fermented, a
strategy he pursued also with the Irish nationalists. Thinking big, he planned an invasion of
Canada and tried to enlist Mexico as an ally of the Central Powers in the event
of the US entering the war with the promise California and Arizona would be
returned. More practically, early in
1915 he hired agents to blow up the Vanceboro international rail bridge which
linked the US and Canada between New Brunswick and Maine. That wasn’t a success but of greater impact
was that Papen had departed from the usual practices of espionage by paying the
bombers by cheque. It was only his diplomatic
immunity which protected him from arrest but British intelligence had been
monitoring his activities and provided a file to the US State Department which in
December 1915 declared him persona non grata and expelled him. Upon his arrival in Berlin, he was awarded
the Iron Cross.
Hopelessly ineffective though his efforts had proved, by
the time Papen left the US, the words sabotage and saboteur had come into
common use including in warning posters and other propaganda. Papen went on greater things, serving briefly
as chancellor and even Hitler’s deputy, quite an illustrious career for one
described as “uniquely, taken seriously by neither his opponents nor his
supporters”. When one of the Weimar Republic's many scheming king-makers suggested Papen as chancellor, others thought the noting absurd, pointing out: "Papen has no head for politics." The response was: "He doesn't need a head, his job is to be a hat". Despite his known limitations, he proved one of the Third
Reich’s great survivors, escaping purges and assassination and, despite being
held in contempt by Hitler, served the regime to the end. Even its coda he survived, being one of the
few defendants at the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946) to be acquitted (to be fair he was one of
the few Nazis with the odd redeeming feature and his sins were those of cynical opportunism rather than evil intent) although the German courts did
briefly imprison him, albeit under rather pleasant conditions.
The Simple Sabotage Field Manual (SSFM) was published in 1944 by the US Office of Strategic
Services (OSS), the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Its original purpose was as a resource for
OSS field agents to use in motivating or recruiting potential foreign saboteurs
and permission was granted permission to print and disseminate portions of the
document as needed. The idea was to
provide tools and instructions so just about any member of society could inflict
some degree of damage of a society and its economy, the rationale being that of
a “death of a thousand cuts”. In
contrast, the more dramatic and violent acts of sabotage (high-risk activities
like killings or blowing stuff up) were only ever practiced by a handful of
citizens. The SSFM was aimed at US
sympathizers keen to disrupt war efforts against the allies during World War II
(1939-1945) in ways that were barely detectable but, in cumulative effect, measurable
and thus contains instructions for destabilizing or reducing progress and
productivity by non-violent means. The booklet is separated into headings that
correspond to specific audiences, including: Managers and Supervisors, Employees,
Organizations and Conferences, Communications, Transportation (Railways,
Automotive, and Water), General Devices for Lowering Morale and Creating
Confusion & Electric Power. The
simplicity of approach was later adopted by the CIA when it distributed its Book of Dirty Tricks.
Of great amusement to students (amateur and professional)
of corporate organizational behavior was that a number of the tactics the SSFM
lists as being disruptive and tending to reduce efficiency are exactly those familiar
to anyone working in a modern Western corporation.
Middle Management
(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never
permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and
at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of
personal experiences.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for
“further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committee as large as
possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications,
minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last
meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that
decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your
fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in
embarrassments or difficulties later on.
Senior Management
(8) In making work assignments, always sign out the
unimportant jobs first. See that important jobs are assigned to inefficient
workers.
(9) Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant
products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw.
(10) To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant
to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions.
(11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to
be done.
(12) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in
issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to
approve everything where one would do.
Employees
(13) Work slowly.
(14) Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you
can.
(15) Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools,
machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from
doing your job right.
(16) Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.
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