Jonathan Steele: Andrei Sakharov's birthday celebrations are also a Soviet history lesson

Jonathan Steele is a Guardian columnist, roving correspondent and author. 

No Russian did more to draw attention to human rights abuses in the era when Leonid Brezhnev led the Soviet Union than the nuclear physicistAndrei Sakharov. Though he died suddenly in 1989, celebrations are taking place in Moscow this week for his 90th birthday and to remind young Russians of his place in history.

A member of the team which developed Moscow's hydrogen bomb in the firm belief that world peace depended on the Soviet Union achieving military balance with the United States, he later had second thoughts about the risks of confrontation that both sides were running. He also opposed the idea of anti-ballistic missile defence.

To ensure real peace he came to the view that the two states' political systems must reach some degree of convergence. For Russia this meant greater democracy and openness as well as a revival of the de-Stalinisation programme that began after the dictator's death but was stopped a decade later. When his private letters to the authorities had no effect, he chose to speak out...