Bystrolëtov, D. A. 1901-1975

Dmitri Aleksandrovich Bystrolyotov (January 3, 1901 – May 3, 1975) (Russian: Дмитрий Александрович Быстролётов) was a Soviet Russian intelligence officer, a polyglot, a writer and a Gulag prisoner. As a Soviet undercover operative, Bystrolyotov worked in Western Europe between World War I and II, recruiting and controlling several agents in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. His greatest achievement was breaking into the British Foreign Office files years before Kim Philby, as well as procuring diplomatic ciphers of many of European countries. In the 1930s, he fell victim of Joseph Stalin's purges. Arrested by the NKVD on drummed up charges, he was tortured severely. While serving his term, he spent over 16 years in various Gulag camps. There, at great risk to himself, he wrote and smuggled his memoirs to the outside world. According to an account by Radio Free Europe, they were "an indictment of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's crimes against humanity".