Stats of the day

Communism by the numbers:

• 136: the number of people who died trying to escape East Germany either across the Berlin Wall or another border point.

• 71: the number of American and British servicemen who lost their lives during the Berlin airlift.

• 1,104: number of Romanians who lost their lives during the revolution to overthrow the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

• 40-70 million: number of Chinese who died under policies enacted by Mao Zedong.

• 1,053,829: the number of people who died in Soviet gulags from 1934 to 1953.

• 124,779: the number of Cubans who fled the country during the Mariel boatlift.

• 6.5: the number you get if you divide the number of East German citizens by the number of secret police agents and informers.

• 200,000: the estimated number of inmates in North Korea's political prisons.

• 400-700: common estimates for the number of political opponents executed at La Cabaña prison while Che Guevara was in charge.
  

• 94 million: the death toll from communist regimes according to The Black Book of Communism.