deliberate destruction of property or slowing down of work with the intention of damaging a business or economic system or weakening a government or nation in a time of national emergency. The word is said to date from a French railway strike of 1910 when workers destroyed the wooden shoes (sabots) that held the rails in place. A few years later sabotage was employed in the United States in the form of slowdowns, particularly in situations that made a strike untenable—such as by migratory workers whose employment was temporary. During World War II anti-German resistance and partisan movements in Europe practiced effective sabotage against factories, military installations, railroads, bridges, and so on, especially in the Soviet Union. After the war, sabotage became the basic weapon of the numerous insurgent groups associated with anticolonial, separatist, and communist-backed movements.

Purely economic sabotage also has continued to be practiced, often unilaterally, by disgruntled employees. In some communist countries, the willful withdrawal of efficiency and the active or passive resistance to plan fulfillment has been deemed economic sabotage, whether or not it is of counter-revolutionary intent.