{"response":"
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The third means of direct conflict is property and material destruction\u2014<\/em>break it. This category includes sabotage. Some say the word sabotage<\/em> comes from early Luddites tossing wooden shoes (sabots)<\/em> into machinery, stopping the gears. But the term probably comes from a 1910 French railway strike, when workers destroyed the wooden shoes holding the rails\u2014a good example of moving up the infrastructure. And sabotage can be more than just physical damage to machines; labor activism has long included work slowdowns and deliberate bungling.<\/p>\n

Sabotage is an essential part of war and resistance to occupation. This is widely recognized by armed forces, and the US military has published a number of manuals and pamphlets on sabotage for use by occupied people. The Simple Sabotage Field Manual<\/em> published by the Office of Strategic Services during World War II offers suggestions on how to deploy and motivate saboteurs, and specific means that can be used. \u201cSimple sabotage is more than malicious mischief,\u201d it warns, \u201cand it should always consist of acts whose results will be detrimental to the materials and manpower of the enemy.\u201d38<\/sup><\/a> It warns that a saboteur should never attack targets beyond his or her capacity, and should try to damage materials in use, or destined for use, by the enemy. \u201cIt will be safe for him to assume that almost any product of heavy industry is destined for enemy use, and that the most efficient fuels and lubricants also are destined for enemy use.\u201d39<\/sup><\/a> It encourages the saboteur to target transportation and communications systems and devices in particular, as well as other critical materials for the functioning of those systems and of the broader occupational apparatus. Its particular instructions range from burning enemy infrastructure to blocking toilets and jamming locks, from working slowly or inefficiently in factories to damaging work tools through deliberate negligence, from spreading false rumors or misleading information to the occupiers to engaging in long and inefficient workplace meetings.<\/p>\n

Ever since the industrial revolution, targeting infrastructure has been a highly effective means of engaging in conflict. It may be surprising to some that the end of the American Civil War was brought about in large part by attacks on infrastructure. From its onset in 1861, the Civil War was extremely bloody, killing more American combatants than all other wars before or since, combined.40<\/sup><\/a> After several years of this, President Lincoln and his chief generals agreed to move from a \u201climited war\u201d to a \u201ctotal war\u201d in an attempt to decisively end the war and bring about victory.41<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Historian Bruce Catton described the 1864 shift, when Union general \u201c[William Tecumseh] Sherman led his army deep into the Confederate heartland of Georgia and South Carolina, destroying their economic infrastructures.\u201d42<\/sup><\/a> Catton writes that \u201cit was also the nineteenth-century equivalent of the modern bombing raid, a blow at the civilian underpinning of the military machine. Bridges, railroads, machine shops, warehouses\u2014anything of this nature that lay in Sherman\u2019s path was burned or dismantled.\u201d43<\/sup><\/a> Telegraph lines were targeted as well, but so was the agricultural base. The Union Army selectively burned barns, mills, and cotton gins, and occasionally burned crops or captured livestock. This was partly an attack on agriculture-based slavery, and partly a way of provisioning the Union Army while undermining the Confederates. These attacks did take place with a specific code of conduct, and General Sherman ordered his men to distinguish \u201cbetween the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly.\u201d44<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Catton argues that military engagements were \u201cincidental\u201d to the overall goal of striking the infrastructure, a goal which was successfully carried out.45<\/sup><\/a> As historian David J. Eicher wrote, \u201cSherman had accomplished an amazing task. He had defied military principles by operating deep within enemy territory and without lines of supply or communication. He destroyed much of the South\u2019s potential and psychology to wage war.\u201d46<\/sup><\/a> The strategy was crucial to the northern victory.<\/p>\n<\/div>","prev_data_url":"\/en\/resistance\/action-taxonomy\/direct-action-reclamation-expropriation\/","next_data_url":"\/en\/resistance\/action-taxonomy\/violence-against-humans-raf\/","title":"Direct Action: Sabotage and Property & Material Destruction"}