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Wrecking ( or vreditel'stvo, lit. "inflicting damage"), was a crime specified in the criminal code of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 in the Stalin
Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953....
 era.

It is often translated as "sabotage
Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy, oppressor or employer through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction....
"; however "wrecking" and "diversionist acts" and "counter-revolutionary sabotage" were distinct sub-articles of Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)
Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)

Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on February 25, 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times....
 (58-7, 58-9, and 58-14 respectively), and the meaning of "wrecking" is closer to "undermining".

These three categories are distinguished in the following way.



As applied in practice, "wrecking" and "sabotage" could refer to any actions which could be broadly construed to negatively impact the economy in some way, including failing to meet economic targets, causing poor morale among subordinates, lack of effort, or alleged or real incompetence.






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Wrecking ( or vreditel'stvo, lit. "inflicting damage"), was a crime specified in the criminal code of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 in the Stalin
Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953....
 era.

It is often translated as "sabotage
Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy, oppressor or employer through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction....
"; however "wrecking" and "diversionist acts" and "counter-revolutionary sabotage" were distinct sub-articles of Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)
Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)

Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on February 25, 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times....
 (58-7, 58-9, and 58-14 respectively), and the meaning of "wrecking" is closer to "undermining".

These three categories are distinguished in the following way.

  • Diversions are acts of immediate infliction of physical damage on state and cooperative property.
  • Wrecking are deliberate acts aimed against normal functioning of state and cooperative organisations, e.g., giving deliberately wrong commands.
  • Sabotage was non-execution or careless execution of one's duties.


As applied in practice, "wrecking" and "sabotage" could refer to any actions which could be broadly construed to negatively impact the economy in some way, including failing to meet economic targets, causing poor morale among subordinates, lack of effort, or alleged or real incompetence. Thus, it referred to economic or industrial sabotage only in the very broadest sense. Many who were charged were merely scapegoats. In many cases, even those who were not engaged in industrial activity (including scientists) were charged with wrecking.

Many of the victims of the Great Purge
Great Purge

Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1936-1938. Also described as a "Soviet holocaust" by several authors, it involved the purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, repression of kulaks, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliat...
 were charged with wrecking. The term is mentioned and described in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russians novelist, dramatist and historian. Through his writings, he made the world aware of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labour camp system, and for these efforts Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974....
's The Gulag Archipelago
The Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn based on the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system. The three-volume book is a massive narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author's own experiences as a prisoner in a GULAG labor camp....
. He relates the story of a manager who was accused of sabotage when he refused to carry out an order to increase the amount of freight moved by train (he had already increased it to the maximum load possible). Eventually he gave in and began overloading the trains, and years later he was arrested for wrecking, for overloading the trains so as to wear out the tracks faster.