ABSTRACT: This article explores a distinct Soviet policy of occupational care that emerged after World War II, when Soviet industry invented an array of respiratory protective equipment (RPE). The annual production of millions of devices highlighted the development of a complex Soviet transinstitu- tional system for insuring safe occupational breathing. Following key prem- ises of respiratory safety policies in the activities of Soviet organizations, this article traces a biopolitical shift from mortality to vitality. By showing the curial role of RPE in the history of occupational rather than military safety in the twentieth century, the article fills a major research gap to feature Soviet modernity through the unique lens of industrial respiratory care in postwar Soviet Union between the late 1940s and the early 1990s. Introduction In his memoir No Entrance without a Gas Mask, Aleksandr Otdel’nov, a Soviet chemical engineer, recalled a 1980 episode in Department 102 of the Korund Factory at Dzerzhinsk, in the heart of the Soviet chemical in- dustry. 1 That department was especially hazardous due to extremely poi- sonous chemicals such as phosgene and chlorobenzene. The technological process was partially automated; during regular breaks, the staff gathered in the smoke room to chat. They often played the matchbox game. 2 Once, when a worker called Gena-the-Goose lost, he became so angry that he ran out of the room, threatening a “Battle of Khalkin Gol”—a well-known mil- itary conflict between the Soviet and Japanese armies in the buildup to Citation: Chunikhin, Kirill. “Risk and Respirators: The Hazardous Trajectories of Soviet Occupational Safety, 1940s–80s.” Technology and Culture 63, no. 3 (2022): 603–33. ©2022 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/23/6303-0002/603–33 1. Otdel’nov, Bez protivogaza ne vkhodit’! [No entrance without a gas mask!], 7. Available at: https://www.promzona.site/_files/ugd/313beb_0089d76f53f1454184b1ae ed03220651.pdf. 2. The aim is to throw a matchbox so that it does not land on the large, flat side. F Risk and Respirators The Hazardous Trajectories of Soviet Occupational Safety, 1940s–80s KIRILL CHUNIKHIN 603