Career
Descendant of the Decembrist Bestuzhev family. Created a sensation with his two-page article in Nedelia (April 1988), which gave a detailed account of the atrocities of the Stalin era -‘50 million killed, or condemned to labour camps from which they never emerged’. He also said that dekulakization had cost 25 million peasants’ lives during Stalin's collectivization campaign.
Among letters received from readers was one signed by five ‘veterans of World War II’, which threatened to finish him off without witnesses.