Krasnyi Proletarii Moscow Machine-Tool Plant

(full name, A. I. Efremov Krasnyi Proletarii Moscow Machine-tool Plant), one of the oldest and most important machine-tool enterprises in the USSR; it is unique in the magnitude of production and the degree to which specialized high-production equipment is provided for in the production process. It has played a significant role in the development of machine-tool building in the USSR. It produces universal screw-cutting machines and special lathes. In 1951 it was named in honor of A. I. Efremov, who was the minister of machine-tool building of the USSR from 1941 to 1949. It was founded in 1857 by the Bromley brothers, who were French entrepreneurs. In 1870 it began the production of planes for its own machine shops; it later produced metalworking and woodworking machine tools and other products.

The plant’s workers took an active part in the revolutionary movement; they went on strike repeatedly; participated in the funeral of N. E. Bauman in 1905, which grew into a protest demonstration; and fought on the barricades during the December uprising. In October 1917 the Red Guards of the plant conducted an armed struggle against the Junkers on Ostozhenka (now Metrostroevskaia Street) in the vicinity of the Kamennyi and Krymskii bridges. The plant was nationalized in 1918. In 1922, at the request of the workers, it received the name Krasnyi Proletarii (Red Proletariat); it specialized in the production of metalworking lathes and internal-combustion engines. The DIP lathe (from dognat’ i peregnat’, “to overtake and surpass [the capitalist countries]”) was designed at the plant during the first five-year plan (1929–32).

During the Great Patriotic War (1939–45) the plant made products for the front, while continuing to produce machine tools. In 1944 the world’s first machine-tool assembly line was installed at the plant. The changeover to flow production of the 1A62 lathe was accomplished in 1949 without interruption. In addition to series machine-tool production, the workers at the plant mastered the production of precision machine tools and semiautomatic vertical multiple drilling machines. In 1956 the plant was changed over to long-run manufacture of the new 1K62 lathe. Between 1966 and 1970, series production of the 1K282 semiautomatic eight-spindle vertical drilling machine was begun, a number of fundamentally new special machine tools were manufactured, and series production of machine tools with digital programmed control was started. In 1972 and 1973 the plant was retooled for production of the new 16K20 machine tool.

There are three kinds of production at the Krasnyi Proletarii Moscow Machine-tool Plant: long-run (universal and precision lathes, and also machine tools with digital programmed control), series production (semiautomatic vertical multiple drilling machines), and short-run or unit production (special machine tools of various types, mainly for the automotive and tractor industries). Electronic computers are used in the plant for various technical and economic computations and sociological research; high-precision and high-productivity equipment is also used. The volume of production achieved in 1973 was almost triple that of 1960. A substantial number of machine tools are exported to socialist and capitalist countries. The plant participates in international exhibitions and has received certificates and medals. It was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1939, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1957, and the Order of the October Revolution in 1971.