Wrecking (russian: вредительство or ''vreditel'stvo'', lit. "inflicting damage", "harming") was a crime specified in the criminal code of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in the

Stalin era Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

. It is often translated as "

sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...

"; however, "wrecking", "diversionist acts", and "

counter-revolutionary A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...

sabotage" were distinct sub-articles of

Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code) Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times. In particular, its Article 58-1 was updated by the listed sub-articles and ...

(58-7, 58–9, and 58-14 respectively), and the meaning of "wrecking" is closer to "undermining".

Types of wrecking

Distinctions among the three categories in the sub-articles: * Diversions were acts of immediate infliction of physical damage on state and cooperative property. * Wrecking was deliberate acts aimed against normal functioning of state and cooperative organisations, such as giving deliberately wrong commands. * Sabotage was non-execution, or careless execution, of one's duties. As applied in practice, "wrecking" and "sabotage" referred to any action which negatively affected the economy, including failing to meet unrealistic economic targets, allegedly causing poor morale among subordinates (e.g. by complaining about conditions of work), lack of effort, or other incompetence. Thus, it referred to economic or industrial sabotage in the very broadest sense. The definition of sabotage was interpreted dialectically and indirectly, so any form of non-compliance with Party directives could have been considered a 'sabotage'.

"Wrecking" in the Soviet Census of 1937

One of the

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...

s involving charges of "wrecking" was that of official coordinators of the 1937 Soviet Census. The census was organised with great expectations from the government that it would confirm the superiority of the Soviet economic and social model, with Stalin publicly declaring in 1934 that the Soviet Union was gaining at least 3 million citizens per year. The census questions and procedure were prepared for several years by a commission of professional statisticians and demographers, but then significantly changed by Stalin and other members of the

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...

to better match their political goals – the collection phase of the census was shortened and the procedures simplified. The results obtained from the census were at least 8 million people short of the expected outcome and immediately classified. The formal organizers were accused of "wrecking" and sent to camps, and the shortage was officially presented as caused by their negligence and acts of sabotage. The actual measurement error, as estimated by statisticians in the 1990s, did not exceed 1.5%, and the disappointing result was caused by the huge loss of life that occurred during

collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member ...

, the Famine of 1932–1933, including in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

(

Holodomor The Holodomor ( uk, Голодомо́р, Holodomor, ; derived from uk, морити голодом, lit=to kill by starvation, translit=moryty holodom, label=none), also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famin ...

), and the mortality rates in the

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

Cultural depictions

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...

, in his book of the prison camps of the Soviet Union, ''

The Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...

'', describes

Nikolai von Meck Nikolai Karlovich von Meck (russian: Никола́й Ка́рлович фон Мекк; 28 April 1863 – 24 May 1929) was a Russian Empire engineer and entrepreneur involved in the development of the Russian Empire during the first part of the t ...

, an engineer who advised placing heavier-than-average loads on

freight trains Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons ( International Union of Railways) haule ...

for the betterment of the economy. He was convicted of being a wrecker and shot — his supposed crime being that he had overloaded the trains for the purpose of wearing out the rails faster.

Notes

{{Lysenkoism Political repression in the Soviet Union Soviet phraseology Crime in the Soviet Union Soviet law Incompetence

Types of wrecking

"Wrecking" in the Soviet Census of 1937

Cultural depictions

See also

Notes