  A definition of soft breaking of BRST symmetry in the field-antifield
formalism is proposed, valid for general gauge theories and arbitrary gauge
fixing. The Ward identities for the generating functionals of Green's functions
are derived, and their gauge dependence is investigated. We discuss the
Gribov-Zwanziger action for the one-parameter family of R_xi gauges. It is
argued that gauge theories with a soft breaking of BRST symmetry are
inconsistent.
