Machine Tool Plant "Red Fighter" — 125 years
The beginning of the path of the Orsha Machine-Building Plant "Red Fighter" was the mechanical workshops. They were built on the banks of the Orshitsa River in 1900 by the Orsha merchants I. B. Slavin and S. P. Yasin.
The first products were barrels, tanks, machines and devices for mills and distilleries, agricultural tools. Everything was in demand, and by 1914 the workshops had grown into a small factory. It became the main metalworking enterprise in Orsha. In 1928, it was named "Mechanical and Cast Iron Foundry Plant 'Red Fighter'."
During the years of industrialization, the plant grew into a large industrial enterprise for the repair and manufacture of agricultural machines, production of spare parts for them, machine tools, and consumer goods by 1941.
The Great Patriotic War interrupted the peaceful labor of the factory workers. In early July 1941, the plant was stopped, the main equipment was dismantled and transported to the city of Rezh in the Sverdlovsk region along with some workers and their families, where they quickly established the production of ammunition for the front.
In 1945, the restoration of the completely destroyed plant began, where the production of planing, mortising-milling, and drilling machines was established.
In 1951, 15 responsible tasks were completed for the largest construction projects in the country – the Kuibyshev and Kakhovka hydroelectric power stations, the Volga-Don and Main Turkmen canals. The range of products produced expanded.
The modern history of the plant is considered to begin in 1959, when the first flat grinding machine model 3B71 was developed and produced. Since that period, a new era in the history of the plant began – the production of flat grinding machines of high and ultra-high precision. Since then, the plant has been called a machine-building plant, and the products of the "Red Fighter" have gained worldwide fame. The machines of the "Red Fighter" now operate in more than 115 countries around the world.
The enterprise has repeatedly been awarded the Government of the Republic of Belarus Prize for achievements in quality (2000, 2003, 2006, 2010, 2016) and has been a three-time laureate of the Ministry of Industry Prize.
Today, the main direction of the production activity of Orsha machine builders, along with the serially produced range of flat grinding and milling machines, is also the production of special grinding machines by customer orders for performing specific operations in small-scale, series, and mass production.
The "Red Fighter" plant is a significant milestone in the history of domestic machine building, one of the largest flagships of machine building in the post-Soviet space for the production of metalworking equipment.
The history of the plant is the history of each member of the labor collective as a single whole, focused on a common task – effective work. The plant's team takes pride in its history and products, primarily in their quality and reliability.