Krasnyi Proletarii Printing House

(Red Proletariat Printing House), a major printing establishment in the USSR that prints political books for a mass readership. It was founded in 1869 in Moscow as I. N. Kushnerev and Company. By the early 20th century, it was a large printing house with high-speed letterpresses and lithograph machines.

The workers at the printing house took part in the revolutionary movement, participating in the printers’ general strike of 1903 and the armed uprising of 1905. In 1905 the house printed issues of the newspaper Izvestiia Moskovskogo Soveta rabochikh deputatov (News of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies). In 1918, after the Soviet government moved from Petrograd to Moscow, the printing house became the government’s principal publishing house. In the early 1920’s, on the order of V. I. Lenin, it published G. M. Krzhizhanovski’s The Basic Tasks in the Electrification of Russia. In 1922 the house was named the Krasnyi Proletarii Printing House.

Between 1951 and 1955 the equipment in the printing and offset shops was modernized, the sewing and binding processes were mechanized, and assembly-line production was introduced. The printing house has been expanded and modernized since 1961. Two new wings have been built, new equipment has been installed throughout, and the production processes have been mechanized and automated. The output in 1975 was eight times greater than that of 1940, and labor productivity has increased correspondingly 6.2 times. In a single day the printing house produces 90,000 bound books and approximately 300,000 booklets and journals. The printing house was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1969.