Abstract: The article analyses prosopographic database of political prisoners in the years of the Red Terror (1918–1922). The author addresses the problems of relational database creation on the basis of the Political Prisoners Aid Society “Moscow Political Red Cross” (MPRC). The source base of the database is census papers of political prisoners collected by the MPRC legal department stored in the Russian Federation State Archive, Fund Р-8419. Most of them are introduced into scientific turnover for the first time. Statistical analysis of the database as well as source study analysis of census papers has been carried out. The results of analysis of arrest dynamics and the reasons for arrests are discussed as well. It is demonstrated that arrest dynamics was logical as it reflected social and political process in the years understudy (military communism regime, suppression of peasants’ revolt and attempt to centralize and arrange punitive bodies’ activity).
The analysis of arrest reasons showed that most of 1918–1922 political prisoners were charged with counterrevolution, participation in the White Movement, espionage and anti-Soviet agitation.