John Paul II has always been fighting Communism and when elected Pope, he first addressed himself to his fellow citizens from the East when he pronounced the famous line: “Don’t be afraid!”.

He was firmly convinced that Communism had to be fought against and that it would not last. From the start, he had supported the actions of his compatriot Lech Walesa.
When the Wall came tumbling down though, he did not encourage the population who had been liberated from the Communist stranglehold to embrace materialism as seen in the West – which is one of the reasons why, at the end of his pontificate, he visited Cuba…one of the last bastions of communism in the world.