Pavel Pestel

[1] His great-grandfather, grandfather, father and uncle had all successively served as director of Moscow's postal mail service, forming a dynasty of sorts.

But because of Speransky Ivan Pestel and his governor in Irkutsk Nikolai Treskin were accused in bribery and in the corrupt regime in Siberia and resigned with shame.

At the same time, Pavel Pestel spoke in support of mass repressions, regicide and physical annihilation of all the members of the imperial family initially.

Starting in 1821, Pavel Pestel worked on a project of social and economic reforms in Russia, which he would later call Russkaya Pravda (Русская правда) and which would be adopted as a political program.

In 1825 Pavel Pestel conducted negotiations with the Polish Patriotic Society [pl], discussing the possibility of joint revolutionary actions.

On 13 December 1825 (the day before the Decembrists came out in open revolt in Saint Petersburg) Pavel Pestel was arrested in Tulchin (in Podolia) in relation to an attempt to assassinate[citation needed] Emperor Nicholas I.

For example, there is an opinion now, that just the Ordain of Russian knights, linked to Alexander von Benckendorff, was the main secret organization and not Pestel's Salvation Union.