The Battle of the Red October Factory was fought between the German Wehrmacht's 24th Panzer Division, LI Armeekorps and the Soviet Red Army's 112th Guards Rifle Regiment, 39th Guards Motor Rifle Division in November 1942 amid the Battle of Stalingrad.
The Krasny Oktyabr steel plant, named for the October Revolution of 1917, was built from 1928 to 1930. In October 1942, the headquarters of the 120th Rifle Regiment of the Red Army's 39th Guards Motor Rifle Division was placed in the basement of the factory's laboratory. From 15 to 25 October 1942, as the Battle of Stalingrad began, the 253rd Tarashchansky Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division fought fierce battles with the Germans. On 21 November 1942, the panzergrenadiers of the 24th Panzer Division were ordered to push forward again, supported by the last few mobile tanks of their division, and break through the resistance at the Red October Factory, where the 39th Guards hung on grimly for weeks. The factory was bombed and shelled into ruins, making the assaults a nightmare, made even worse by the onset of winter. The fighting for the plant ground down to a stalemate, and, in mid-December 1942, the Tarashchansky regiment fought to the death in the laboratory. Fighting for the laboratory ended with its recapture by the Red Army on 25 December 1942, and the plant was fully freed by 10 January 1943.