Based on unpublished material from Russian archives, and on interviews with engineers and workers, this article explores, for the first time, the history of Soviet respiratory protective equipment (RPE). I argue that a distinct Soviet policy of occupational care emerged after World War II, when Soviet industry invented an array of original RPE devices. The annual production of millions of devices highlighted the development of a complex Soviet trans-institutional system for insuring safe occupational breathing. Tracing key premises of respiratory safety policies in the activities of Soviet organizations, such as the All-Union Commission against Silicosis, discloses a biopolitical shift that I characterize as a move from mortality to vitality. By filling a major gap in the global technological history of occupational safety, this paper sheds new light on the nature of Soviet modernity through the unique lens industrial respiratory care from the late 1940s to the 1980s.

My analysis of RPE within Soviet biopolitics is based on an assumption that increased occupational care does not merely stem from, but also further increases certain industrial dangers. From the array of possibilities designed for particular technological environments, if the wrong masks were selected, or adequate masks were poorly adjusted, workers health could be jeopardized. Indeed, occupational safety problems could not be fixed solely by inventing devices. Arguably, industrial care was ineffective without a proper discourse, and the distribution of respiratory knowledge and best practices mattered vitally. Hence, Soviet respiratory discourse is explored as it evolves from “gas mask craft” into “the science of the gas mask.” Analyzing magisterial publications of the Leningrad Research Institute of Labor Safety shows how respiratory knowledge was systematized, popularized, and mediated. Ultimately, my humanitarian reading of technical literature showcases how Soviet RPE professionals envisioned a perfect system of care for the breathing of Soviet workers.

Paradoxically, but prior to the Cold War – with no Iron Curtain preventing free cultural exchange – the USSR hosted single exhibitions of American art, all minor in terms of aesthetical significance, attendance, and impact. However, during the Cold War – despite Soviet alienation from the West and regardless of the essential for the USSR anti-Americanism – the Soviet venues hosted dozens exhibitions introducing American art from figurative to abstract to millions of Soviet visitors. Nearly all these exhibitions remain unexplored. Basing on the unique materials from American and Russian archives, the research for the very first time examines this paradoxically extensive exhibiting and brings together in an orchestrated effort the unique historical outline of American art to the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1991.

A full-length study is available here.