The company's factory was established on April 30, 1897, by the French Ural-Volga Metallurgical Society (). After the
Bolshevik Revolution the factory became known as
Krasny Oktyabr, Russian: "Red October" (named for the
October 1917 Revolution) To the west, it was widely known as the
Red October Factory. The factory provided steel for the
Stalingrad Tractor Factory. It was completely destroyed in the
Battle of Stalingrad, but was restored by 1946. During the
Soviet era it was awarded the
Order of Lenin and the
Order of the Red Banner of Labour.
1999 bankruptcy In 1999, Krasny Oktyabr entered bankruptcy hearings. In 2007 under advice from
Troika Dialog and its managing director
Sergey Skvortsov,
Sergey Chemezov, who was the General Director of
Rostec, formed one holding for all enterprises manufacturing special steels and alloys. For financing both JSC Russpetsstal () and CSJC Russpetsstal in the holding Russpetsstal,
VTB provided 1.7 billion rubles in early 2007 and 1.96 billion rubles at the end of 2007,
Sberbank provided almost 2 billion rubles in 2008–2009 in addition to the 1 billion rubles that Krasny Oktyabr obtained from Sberbank in 2006,
Gazprombank provided 1.8 billion rubles in 2008, and
Bank Rossiya provided 1.3 billion rubles to (Stupinskaya Metallurgical Company) which was held by JSC Russpetsstal. In 2013 it came under the ownership of
Dmitry Gerasimenko. In November 2016, Gerasimenko was detained in Cyprus on fraud charges, over the alleged theft of a $65 million loan from
VTB Bank. Gerasimenko believed that representatives of
Uralvagonzavod and
Oleg Sienko, who was the general director of Uralvagonzavod, represents Rostec, and is a protege of
Sergey Chemezov, were involved in stealing the proceeds from the loan before the funds were received by Gerasimenko and Krasny Okyabr. In 2016, Sienko stated, "In fact, all the profitability that we have goes to servicing the loan portfolio." In March 2017, Alexander Potapov () replaced Sienko as head of Uralvagonzavod due to financial abuse. For his freedom from incarceration, Dmitry Gerasimenko "sold" the plant, which was in bankruptcy proceedings, to Pavel Krotov in late November 2018. VZBT retained its main activity - the production of drilling rigs. The stainless steel production was 34093 tons in 2020, compared to 2019, which was 26281 tons. ==Production delays==