I can speak to Russia. In the first place we have to note that Russia from 1916 onwards (arguably from the Great Retreat of 1915) was in the grip of an increasingly severe economic crisis. This had its origins in the war, particularly the disastrously clumsy rule of the generals, what Joshua Sanborn has termed 'Stavkaism'. The war saw the collapse of trade networks, the mass movement of refugees, near-collapse of the civilian administrative apparatus, unceasing wear of machinery, disruption of labour patterns and intense strain placed on the transport network.

Not only did the February Revolution accentuate all of these factors, it also threw in political paralysis and a sharp increase in class tension between employers and workers. The initial revolution had been greeted by a range of concessions from employers (better wages and conditions, eight hour day in places) while unions and factory committees quickly established themselves.

But the dual political and economic crises soon undermined bourgeois willingness (and ability) to deal with organised labour. This was in part a general collapse in the faith of propertied society in the revolution - by summer 1917 whispers of coups began in circulate in parts of Petrograd - but also a reflection of economic reality. As costs rose, profits collapsed and investment withered in the face of uncertainty. In June 1917 Minister for Trade and Industry, Konovalov (Kadet), admitted that:

Entrepreneurs, not feeling themselves on firm ground, have lost the appropriate energy. They desire to halt production or transfer the rocketing costs of production onto the broad circles and onto the exchequer by exorbitant increases in commodity prices.

The response from owners to this crisis was generally to emphasise the need to return to factory discipline, increase productivity and reduce costs (read: wages). This was obviously anathema to the increasing movement of workers towards increasing shop-floor organisation and self-management. So from summer 1917 you have a real hardening of attitudes: wage negotiations become more protracted, lockouts begin again and production is cut-back.

Now none is this is necessarily economic sabotage but it is still, shall we say, an antagonistic response to the crisis and the shifting balance of power on the shop-floor.

Obviously this is a red flag to the unions and factory committees, whose analysis of the situation and perceived remedy is very different. Now deeply suspicious of the employers, and aware of the large profits that the war industries had made in previous years, it didn't take much to interpret such measures as sabotage.

In some cases they were right. When the Pipe Works attempted to transfer most of its operations out of Petrograd in 1917, their factory committee discovered that not only were the proposed sites not ready but that there were only plans to retain 1.2k of the existing 20k workforce. Examples like this fuelled the idea of a capitalist conspiracy, which quickly became accepted knowledge amongst the labour organisations.

So there were good reasons for the economic pressure on the bourgeoisie and there's little evidence of capitalists plotting to use the 'bony hand of starvation' to subdue workers. However there were certainly some examples of 'sabotage' and in general the employers' approach to the crisis was far from conciliatory. In truth, neither class really had a handle on the causes of the crisis or a mutually acceptable solution.

As for comparative examples, I don't want to range far into unfamiliar territory. But while 'sabotage' is a charged term, I don't think there's anything unique about the above. While such accusations were also heard during the French Revolution, it's the Popular Front in the same country during the 1930s that springs to my mind. Here an initial (electoral) triumph for the working class leads to concessions that are later challenged by an aggressive class of employers. Capital flight, renewed employer organisations, resistance to collective bargaining, etc, were all features of a class actively organising against the new government and fighting to maintain its grip on the shop-floor.

In both cases - and if I really wanted to stretch things I'd be tempted to throw in some of Detlev Peukert's thoughts on Weimar Germany - we have employers conceding, well, concessions to their workers before fighting hard to claw them back. Sometimes these were via legal channels, sometimes they were more blatantly 'sabotage'. To the eyes of the workers facing them, did it really make much of a difference?

Sources

I've referenced Joshua Sanborn (Imperial Apocalypse) for the pre-revolution collapse. I like how Rex Wade presents this particular issue in his Russian Revolution. Steve Smith (Red Petrograd) goes into more detail on the workers' perspective but he's not quite critical enough of their accounts for my taste.

For France, I recommend Julian Jackson's Popular Front in France, in which this conflict between employers and the state (note the difference from Russia) is an important aspect.