Chapter 7 The Real Saviors

Chapter 7

The Real Saviors

Franklin Roosevelt; Dwight Eisenhower; Winston Churchill; Bernard Montgomery; Josef Stalin; Karol Wojtyla

Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), a man with Dutch, French and English ancestry, was the thirty second President of the United States, and he was beloved by the people. Historians rate him as one of the top three American Presidents along with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. He was a Democrat in power from 1933 until April 1945 and unfortunately he died right before the end of World War II. He never lived to see the end of Adolf Hitler and Hitler’s henchmen, and he never knew the full extent of the atrocities that they had committed.

The United States of America, under Franklin D. Roosevelt, joined World War II in December 1941 after Japan allied itself with Hitler’s Germany and then, without a declaration of war, attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.

Roosevelt with his cheerful outlook and his big, happy grin was the right President at the right time in history. This American President was the person who helped to save Europe from further destruction by the Nazis hordes. He was the man who gave the order to drop two atom bombs on Japan, atom bombs that stopped the Japanese dead in their tracks. With the help of the British and the Soviets, the American army invaded Europe and helped to conquer Germany.

Roosevelt had a sanguine temperament. He was described as a friendly person with lots of charisma and a person with a great ability to relate to the common people. In spite of being stricken with polio at the age of thirty nine and unable to walk without leg irons for the rest of his life, because of his sanguine temperament, Franklin Roosevelt was always able to put on a happy face whenever he plunged into war and politics.

Roosevelt had a marvelous ability to disregard his critics and he had an unwavering belief that all would turn out well in the end. He wasn’t always one hundred percent upright because this American President could be somewhat deceptive and was completely underhand whenever circumstances dictated the need for it, but Roosevelt believed that the end always justified the means.

These are the words that people who knew Franklin Roosevelt, used to describe him; persistent optimist, enthusiastic, confident, anti-imperialist, a man who liked women, secretive, a man who broke promises and a man who was on his way to becoming a dictator. Roosevelt always felt that his way was the best way, and he was so forceful that quite often he did get his way, in spite of massive measures other politicians took to obstruct him. Not everyone liked or admired the thirty second President of the U.S.A.

Franklin Roosevelt had had a smattering of mistresses throughout his life and eventually he and his esteemed wife became estranged from each other. For appearances sake they remained married until his death from a massive stroke, less than a month before the end of the war in Europe.

Roosevelt was born into a distinguished, wealthy family and he had a privileged, advantageous upbringing. His parents used to take their son with them on their frequent trips to Europe and it is reported that he had a very good relationship with both of them. His mother however, was the dominant person in his life, and she was the only person that he totally trusted for guidance and advice in his personal life. Reports are that the parents had a peaceful, loving marriage and that Roosevelt’s father made it his business to spend quality time with his son. He taught his son the value of human life. 

The Roosevelt family socialized with the elite of society and their young son was given every advantage that life had to offer. His headmaster reported that he was a quiet, satisfactory student and a fellow student described him as a nice boy but a bit colorless. Because of his pampered upbringing, Roosevelt’s sanguine temperament allowed him to glide through childhood without running into too much conflict.

But when he became a student at Harvard College, Roosevelt changed and he turned into an energetic, vigorous, ambitious young man. He was clever enough to study law and pass the bar exam in New York City, but he had little interest in becoming a lawyer because Franklin D. Roosevelt liked politics.

Wealth and privilege are enormous, contributing factors in the evolution of a person’s character. Quite often circumstances can dictate all, especially during youth when wealth provides opportunities for education, advancement and enjoyment. Those circumstances coupled with generous, kind and loving parents produced a sanguine, American President who could handle the rigors of a World War. The debilitating effect of polio was the anchor that kept him grounded but he made every effort to hide his disability from the American public.

Like Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt relied heavily on his advisers and his advisers were the right people at the right time. Like Hitler, Roosevelt was a mama’s boy but in this case his mother was fabulously wealthy and did not die at an early age. Unlike Josef Mengele, the Nazi with the same sanguine temperament, Roosevelt was born with a family name that required no further recognition because the family name was already renowned for its achievements, and unlike Hitler’s henchmen he had no need to pursue wealth because he was born into an extremely wealthy family.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was raised in a loving family environment. What was crucial to the development of his character was the quantity and the quality of time spent in the company of his own father. He received love therefore he could give love.

If a person has never received any kind of love in their lifetime, it is almost impossible for that person to give love because the person doesn’t really understand and has never experienced exactly what love is. Without therapy, the closest a person can get to is an idealization of the whole idea of love. But idealization of love has no lasting power and this idealization tends to make people choose the wrong partners in life.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is quoted as saying, “Men are not prisoners of fate but only prisoners of their own minds.” But Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t just rise to the top by virtue of his own vigorous efforts he rose to the top because he had generations of loving support from those family members who went before him.

Roosevelt’s ideology has been quoted many times but the most famous quote is, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It is an idealistic quote that is totally wrong. The Jews of Europe were justified in fearing the Nazis, and the Nazis leaders were justified in fearing retribution because retribution was fierce. The smart ones found relief from their fears in a cyanide capsule.

Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)

Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) was the thirty fourth President of The United States, but during the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, Ike was a military man who was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied forces that conquered Germany in May of 1945. He was in charge of the invasion of France and Germany along The Western Front. The Western Front encompassed Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, France and Western Germany.

Eisenhower was the right man, at the right time, to lead both British and American soldiers into a successful invasion of Europe. He was the right man to communicate with FDR and he had an advantage over the other three leaders because of his cool, calm and collected phlegmatic temperament.

Phlegmatics are considered to be the peacemakers of the world, and Dwight D. Eisenhower was at heart a peacemaker. During his Presidency he initiated many peace treaties both domestically and abroad and he wanted his final, lofty achievement to be world peace, but to no avail.

Because Ike had made the army his career, he had no choice but to go to war, and he did express at one time that he really did want to go to war because he had never actually been on a battlefield. Eisenhower rose to the rank of Five Star General and was credited with having a great ability to correctly identify officer strengths, and then he always followed through and gave these officers duties that best fitted their strengths.

People who knew Eisenhower called him a reticent President. Army officers who served with him in the military described him as efficient, capable and loyal, but he was also incredibly stubborn and he argued vehemently with Roosevelt, Churchill and Montgomery when it came to war tactics in Europe. In fact Eisenhower’s natural reticence was interpreted by some as delaying tactics that were not helping to win the war. But his delaying tactics were highly important to him. He needed time to think clearly so that his strategic plans for winning the war could come to fruition.

But no matter how diplomatic Eisenhower tried to be, his arguments with the British resulted in him developing an extremely antagonistic relationship with Field Marshall Montgomery, the British Commander in Europe. Like Roosevelt, Eisenhower believed that his way was the best way and like his counterpart Field Marshall Montgomery, his way did contribute to the defeat of the Germany army. The British Commander felt that Germany could have been defeated earlier if only he could have had complete control. It was a case of a hard headed, stubborn Phlegmatic standing his ground against a hard headed, stubborn Choleric, Field Marshall Montgomery.

Like Himmler, Eisenhower was a statistician but in his case, and before every military maneuver, he would work out the statistics of how many lives could be saved as apposed to Himmler who worked out the statistics of how many Jews could be murdered.

Thanks to Eisenhower’s foresight the horrific conditions found inside Nazi concentration camps were filmed. He gave orders to document everything that the conquering troops saw and heard, and these films were invaluable as evidence for conviction during The Nazi Nuremberg Trials.

Unlike the Soviets, Dwight Eisenhower viewed German civilians who had survived the bombings, as victims of the war, and he ordered massive relief efforts to begin supplying food and medicine to these survivors. At heart he was a humanitarian and after the war, Eisenhower supported the idea of forming NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for the purpose of promoting world peace. In the U.S.A. Ike also proposed the Civil Rights Act that was voted into being, in 1964 because this long overdue Civil Rights Act was for the purpose of ending discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Its biggest success was to end racial segregation in schools and also in the work place.

The world needs peace-making Phlegmatics just as crucially as it needs heavy handed Melancholics, fiery Cholerics and friendly Sanguines. The world would be a better place if the leaders were all peace loving Phlegmatics, their advisers were all deep thinking Melancholics, the Ambassadors were all friendly Sanguines and the movers and shakers were all high energy Cholerics.  

There wasn’t much difference between the racial discrimination practiced against African Americans in the United States, and the racial discrimination practiced against Jews in Europe, although Judaism is actually the religion and not the race. The people who practice the Judaic religion are the Israelis who are believed to be descendants of the twelve ancient tribes of Israel.

But the Nazis went one step further and decided to make ethnic cleansing (murder) legal. Black slavery in the United States was legal until it was abolished in January of 1865 and it took a civil war to do it. Enslavement of Jews, Slavs and Poles in German conquered territories was legal, and it took a World War to abolish it.

Europeans were also involved in the African slave trade until it ended in the nineteenth century. Slavery was a world-wide practice and reports are that it is still alive today. This leaves little doubt that no matter who you are, and no matter where you were born, all humans are alike in their inhumane treatment towards others. But poverty is a key factor in this modern world. The way to end slavery is to end poverty around the globe. The way to end poverty around the globe is for more resources and education to be evenly distributed among the poorer nations of the world.

Eisenhower had his critics. He was a Republican President who avoided conflict as much as possible by working behind the scenes and his critics called him an inactive and uninspiring President. But like his predecessor Roosevelt, he was beloved by the American people. He had all the attributes of a phlegmatic temperament and his critics missed the fact that he was the voice of temperance and would be sorely missed. He survived seven heart attacks before succumbing to death at the age of seventy eight.

Dwight D Eisenhower was descended from a German, immigrant family that moved to the United States in the mid-eighteenth century. Although his family had a relatively poor start in life, the family eventually became financially comfortable and was able to provide support for Ike’s education. Eisenhower had fond memories of his childhood growing up in his Pennsylvania Dutch family, in spite of the firm disciplinarian beliefs of his parents.

Eisenhower’s mother was a Mennonite who converted to a religious organization called Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although he did not align himself with any particular church, Eisenhower once declared himself to be the most religious person he ever knew. His deep Christian faith was the basis for all his decisions and it has been suggested that because his strict upbringing was so puritanical, it made him into the man who was fit to temper the wild determination of the other three leaders during World War II.

Just like Himmler, Eisenhower tended to be lazy. He preferred to get other people to do the dirty work for him and some of his quotes reflect his attitude towards hard work. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done, because he wants to do it,” and “the essence of leadership is to get others to do something because they think you want it done…”

Nothing is recorded about his relationship with his parents and it can only be assumed that it was a good relationship although his pacifist mother did feel that war was a sin. Even though Ike made the military his career, at heart he was a pacifist and was quoted as saying, “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, the Bulldog of Britain was the epitome of a Melancholic in whom the pendulum swung back and fro with a vengeance. This aristocratic, English born leader could alternate between wild enthusiasm during his political speeches and deep, desperate depression when things were not going well.

Churchill has been described as a brilliant statesman, a stubborn opinionated man, the greatest Brit of all time, on his way to becoming a brutal dictator and just like his Austrian counterpart Adolf Hitler, Churchill was a great orator.

As Colonial in Chief of the British military forces during World War II, Churchill gave electrifying speeches urging the British population to never give up until they had won the war, and his stubborn refusal to capitulate to anyone or anything was indeed credited with helping to win the war.

Although Churchill’s American born mother gave him an annual allowance it was insufficient to meet his needs and so he became a war correspondent, a career that gave him first hand knowledge of war tactics, military planning and military strategies and in essence he received invaluable lessons on the field in how to win a war.  Like Hitler he wrote books and these books provided Churchill with an income.

Although Adolf Hitler was a Choleric and Winston Churchill was a Melancholic, they both vowed to fight to the bitter end and the only difference between them was the side they fought on. Both of these formidable men dabbled as artists and Churchill’s surviving paintings do show that he was indeed quite talented.

 Churchill had a stronger foundation than his adversary. He was half American and had a foot in both camps, the British and the American. He had had an aristocratic education that served to slightly soften his rhetoric and he was brilliant on his own behalf without needing to rely on advisers. Winston Churchill was self assured, self sufficient, self reliant and self centered. It was a foolish endeavor to try to oppose Winston Churchill or even to try to argue a point with him. Like Roosevelt and Eisenhower he felt that his way was the only way to win the war.

It wasn’t Churchill’s personality that allowed him to rise up in British politics, it was his brutality. In his case just like Roosevelt, the end justified the means. Like Eisenhower he chose the military as a career, but unlike Eisenhower he resigned from the military and dove into politics before the start of World War II. At first he served as a Member of Parliament, but he wanted to rise to the top which is exactly where he landed. Melancholic Churchill claimed his prize and gained the title of British Prime Minister, a man fit to lead his country against his counterpart, the scourge of Europe, Adolf Hitler.

Churchill had gained a reputation for cold hearted brutality even before the war started. He believed in the science of Eugenics and he tried but failed to enact forceful sterilization of what he referred to as the feeble minded of British society.

A story is told of how during a local disturbance by a gang of immigrant, Latvian criminals, just like the Nazis, he directed the fire department to let the misguided Latvians burn to death when the house they were holed up in caught fire.

When he got the news that Mohandas Gandhi, the leader of the independence movement against British rule in India, had gone on a hunger strike, Churchill expressed a desire to just let the troublemaker die and when it was suggested to Churchill that Britain should provide food supplies for the starving Indians, he is quoted as saying, “If Gandhi is still alive, why do they need food?”

Churchill was also an Anti-Semite although he did not go as far as to support the extermination of Jews, and he was also Anti-Islam. He would have fitted right in with the leaders of Nazi Germany if he had been born in Germany. Churchill is quoted as having said, “I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using poisonous gas against uncivilized tribes.”

Winston Churchill supported socialist welfare programs to help the poor but expressed his opinion that machine guns should be turned onto some striking coal miners for daring to stand up to the wealthy mine owners.

The man who was viewed as one of the greatest speech masters of all time, the man who was viewed as the greatest Brit of all time, the man who was called the greatest menace in Britain and the man who was known to suffer from the deepest, blackest depression, did help to win the war for Britain and its allies. In the end when he died in January 1965, at the ripe old age of ninety, he was given a state funeral, and as a show of respect for him his funeral was attended by one hundred and twelve foreign dignitaries.

  Winston Churchill had a bleak childhood. His father who was a Lord of the Peer, and his mother who was the daughter of an American millionaire, neglected their son and for the most part left him in the care of his beloved Nanny. When he was a young boy, Churchill missed his parents desperately and begged them to visit after he was sent to boarding school, but to no avail. He was a throwaway child and what rose up to the surface in him were all the negative characteristics of an angry, arrogant Melancholic.

As a child, Churchill developed a speech impediment that he worked hard to eliminate and with the help of his strong determination to succeed, he managed to conquer the lisp that had plagued him for so many years. But he was a rebel and very independent and it was that independence that propelled him into manhood. Unlike his German counterpart Adolf Hitler, Churchill was never physically or mentally abused, just neglected by his parents, but his Nanny is credited with providing some loving support for him during his formative years.

Winston Churchill was on very good terms with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his character is best summed up by one of his famous quotes. ”History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”  His penchant for saying exactly what flashed into his mind is best revealed in some of his witticisms;

“I may be drunk Madam, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

Lady Astor, “Winston if I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee.”

Churchill, “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”

“We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have exhausted all other possibilities.”

“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us but pigs treat us as equals.”

Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976)

Bernard Law Montgomery (Monty) known as The Spartan General, was a much decorated British officer who saw action in both World War I and World War II. He was a gruff, plain spoken man but he was also a courageous man who suffered a serious injury during World War I. While he was on maneuvers near the Belgian border, Montgomery was caught off guard and shot by a sniper. The bullet went through his lung but he did recover and he lived to lead the Allied invasion of Normandy (D-Day) during World War II. Monty had the tenacity of a Choleric man.

Field Marshall Montgomery was instrumental in winning the war against Germany but it was a harrowing experience and he caused much enmity between himself and Dwight Eisenhower because of his bad manners, his self pride and his insistence that he knew best about everything. Montgomery had no ability to filter his language because he was a blunt spoken Choleric. Cholerics have no desire to filter their language because they do prefer to be blunt spoken; they would also prefer it if the rest of the human race was as blunt spoken as they are. Field Marshall Montgomery did not hide his opinion that Eisenhower knew nothing about warfare. He voiced his opinion that Eisenhower should be recalled back to America so that he, Montgomery could have the freedom to handle the war as he saw fit.

For years Montgomery was a hated man. It was said that nobody liked him because he was a bully, distasteful in speech, rude, crude and obnoxious. However after his near death experience in World War I, it was said that he was a somewhat changed man and the British soldiers under his command during World War II, began to admire and respect him.

Bernard Montgomery was a hot-tempered, impatient Choleric but he definitely was a great leader and he did inspire confidence in his men. He was a hero to the British people.

In 1942, the British people needed a hero and they needed to win a battle because the war was going badly for them. The British soldiers who were fighting Rommel in North Africa had developed a defeatist attitude because they were constantly being ordered by the man in charge, to retreat.

Erwin Rommel, who was known as The Desert Fox, was a much admired German officer who was in charge of both Italian and German military divisions that were fighting to gain control of North Africa, and he was winning every battle. Winston Churchill made the controversial decision to replace the British Commander in North Africa with Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery and this afforded Montgomery a chance to prove his mettle. The man who had a face like a fox rallied his troops, spent time training them for proper desert warfare and then he set about to defeat his enemy, the Desert Fox.

Victory in North Africa was exactly what the British needed to hear and from that time on, the British public together with soldiers who fought under him and survived the fighting, considered Montgomery to be the greatest leader in the world. He was admired by the common people until the day he died, but he was not admired by his peers or by the American officers in Europe because of his boorish behavior.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill had actually made an agreement with President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Eisenhower was to be put in charge of The Normandy Invasion, but Montgomery would have none of it. He had no regard for the American general who had never actually participated in combat, and Montgomery acted as if he himself was in charge. He argued constantly with Eisenhower, sneered at Eisenhower’s lack of experience and he made no secret of the fact that he would never fall under Eisenhower’s command.

Cholerics often have difficulties dealing with authoritarian people unless these authoritarian people are more accomplished that their choleric underling. Cholerics bristle at the thought of taking orders from incompetent people.

Montgomery chaffed at Eisenhower’s reticence, he balked at Eisenhower’s decision to allow the Soviets to invade Berlin, the German capital where Hitler was hiding in his underground bunker, and he disagreed vehemently with most of Eisenhower’s strategies. As Montgomery explained it, “We British have centuries of warfare experience, and you Americans have had only two hundred years.”  But Montgomery failed to understand that without the help of the Americans, Britain might have lost the war.

There came a time when Eisenhower did need to ask Montgomery for help because Eisenhower’s strategies were not working out. Montgomery was very pleased to step in and save the day but Montgomery was not perfect, he was also guilty of making some rash decisions that resulted in loss of life for the British.

Montgomery has been described as a no-holds barred type of man which is not surprising considering his choleric temperament. But the fact remains that in spite of his argumentative nature, without him, the war would have lasted much longer than it did. He was very vocal in expressing his belief that the war would have been won sooner without Eisenhower.

Bernard Montgomery was a champion of the common, battle weary, British soldiers and he did have some admirers in the ranks of the American, battle weary soldiers but he was universally detested by men of his own rank.

After victory over the Germans had been declared, and after Montgomery returned to Britain, even Churchill got tired of his constant bragging and interference in British politics. In this way, Montgomery was much like choleric Mike Philpott. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Once when Churchill was at a meeting with King George VI of Great Britain, Churchill said to the King, “Sometimes I think Montgomery wants my job,” and the King replied, “Thank God, I thought he wanted mine.”

Bernard Montgomery had a sad childhood. His father was an Anglican Bishop who was stationed in Tasmania and was so busy that he didn’t have time for his son. The child was looked after by his harsh natured mother who constantly beat him into obedience. He was deprived of love and affection but he did find some solace when he fell in love, got married and started to have children of his own. Unfortunately his wife died at an early age and Montgomery never quite recovered from the loss.  

People who knew Montgomery described him as a lonely man, not close to his children and quite friendless. After his wife died he had no interest in any other women and his one true love became the army. This impossible-to-deal-with, lonely Choleric, together with his troops, actually helped to bring Germany to its knees, and if truth be told, nine times out of ten he was entirely correct in his analyses of how to win the war.

These four men were the commanders of the freedom defenders of World War II, and all four of them were exactly right for the job. One person alone could not have won the war because the job was too big. Hitler’s army was well trained and well armed and to conquer the German forces it took the enthusiasm and drive of a Sanguine, the careful prudence of a Phlegmatic, the unfaltering belief in victory of a Melancholic and the courageous brutal force of a Choleric.

Josef Stalin (1878-1953)

Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jugashvili (Josef Stalin) was the atheist leader of the industrialized, socialist countries of the Soviet Union (USSR) during World War II, and his Red Army was instrumental in helping to win the war against Germany.

In August of 1939 Stalin made one of the biggest mistakes of his life by signing a non-aggressive pact with Hitler and he actually believed that he could depend on that pact while the Soviet army set about invading the countries of Eastern Europe. But in June of 1941 Hitler made the biggest mistake of his life; he broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union.

It was a miserable time for both the Russian and German soldiers and it is estimated that about thirty million Russian soldiers died during the defense of Russian territory and also during offensive action against the Germans, but victory was assured and the Red Army captured Berlin. These were not humanitarian troops, they were Stalin’s troops and Stalin’s troops were given leave to rape and plunder as justified revenge against the Germans who dared to invade the great USSR. 

Josef Stalin was viewed as an enigma, a man who had a kind of hypnotic power, but a dullard when it came to making speeches. He was a brutal dictator, a master at the art of misguiding his enemies and a man who used to love his friends. But in the end he destroyed them all because of his so called paranoia. It wasn’t paranoia. Like Montgomery, Stalin was loved by millions who saw him as the hero who had saved the Soviet Union from the invading Germans, but just like Montgomery, Stalin was utterly despised by those with whom he had to work. Unlike Montgomery who was a Choleric, Stalin was a Melancholic and knew when to keep his mouth shut. He held on to his power until he died from a stroke at the age of seventy four.  

Josef Stalin was a jealous man and after the war, just like Montgomery he had no intention of sharing victory with his commanding officers. He never thanked his officers for their participation and to ensure that they faded into obscurity he removed them from their military positions and sent them into obscurity. 

Just like Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin was super intelligent and like Churchill, Stalin wanted power. When Stalin was a young man he set himself up as a revolutionary working for Vladimir Lenin who led the Bolshevik Revolution that toppled the last Tsar of Russia. It was Lenin who fashioned the Soviet Union into a Marxist, communist country and Stalin dogged his heels all the way to the end. The revolution toppled the Tsar but it was said that Nicholas II wasn’t really the last Tsar who ruled over Imperial Russia; the last tsar of Imperial Russia was Josef Stalin. 

The quiet thoughtful man of steel (very descriptive of a melancholic type), had a superb talent for organization. Like his Nazi counterpart Heinrich Himmler, he sent millions to their deaths, and just like Himmler he tore millions of people from their homes and shipped them by rail to destinations unknown, where they died or suffered the effects of starvation. But Himmler had a phlegmatic temperament and Stalin the Melancholic was more grandiose with his death toll. It is estimated that thirty four to thirty nine million deaths can be attributed to Josef Stalin.

Stalin was a killer and a murderer. He ordered killings by quota. The man of steel thought nothing of ordering the extermination of hundreds of thousands of impoverished peasants and he was also guilty of personally ordering the executions of thousands of individuals whom he believed were plotting against him. He even threw his own blood relatives in jail because they were talking too much about him in public.

Just like Idi Amin, Stalin’s moods could change in a flash and although he was always short on words, he was quick with actions. But thanks to Josef Stalin, the countries of the Soviet Union were pulled kicking and struggling into the twentieth century and out of the medieval way of life that had existed there for centuries.

This melancholic dictator introduced equality for women in the workplace. He enacted free education and health care for all, and he believed in social justice for the ordinary Russians who had supported him in his triumphs over his enemies.

Stalin left a legacy of purges, deportations, public persecution, forced labor, imprisonment, torture, starvation and death but millions of people wept at his funeral. His atrocities equaled those atrocities committed by the Nazis but even today he still has admirers. The Russian majority view him as having been a great and victorious leader who made them into a world power equal to the Americans. They were proud of the man who made the world sit up and pay attention to the great mother country, and her magnificent people.

Josef Stalin was actually born in Georgia which at that time in history was a province of Russia. His family was poor and his father was an abusive alcoholic. In fact, his father was so abusive that that he severely injured his son, an injury that left Stalin with a withered left arm for life.

Because he was so intelligent, Stalin’s mother who was a very religious woman, tried to persuade her son to become a Russian Orthodox priest, but to no avail. He was expelled from the school where he had been sent to train for the priesthood, but the school did serve one purpose in life. This is the place where Stalin discovered the books of Karl Marx and these books detailed a philosophy of communism that appealed to Stalin’s intellect. Just like François Duvalier, Josef Stalin kept a foot in both camps. It was reported that during the 1940’s Stalin a professed atheist went to the Russian Orthodox, church mass four times.

Stalin’s communist society collapsed in December of 1991. Death comes as it must to all men, and death also comes as it must to all dictatorships. Josef Stalin has been quoted as saying, “Death solves all problems- no man, no problems.” Josef Stalin was a mixture of good and evil.

This mixture of good and evil is like a thread that has run through human existence since time began. Religious beliefs follow along the lines that eventually all evil will be erased from the Universe, but it would be a good idea for educated, capable people to start subduing their own inherent evil tendencies just in case these religions are wrong. If evil exists as a separate, spiritual entity, every person who makes an attempt to subdue their own evil nature must surely contribute to the eventual demise of such a strong global force.  

Karol Jȯzef Wojtyla (1920-2005)

In October of 1978 the Vatican elected a new pope and his name was Karol Jȯzef Wojtyla, a Polish citizen by birth. It was the first time in four hundred years that a non-Italian pope had been elected, and this new Polish Pope took the name of Pope John Paul II. It was a historical decision to elect this unknown man of God but it paid off handsomely. This new Pope actually contributed greatly to the defeat of communism in Eastern Europe.

After a historical nine day visit to Poland it was said that Poland had a new ruler and his name was Karol Wojtyla, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and a man who was known and loved throughout the entire world.

The Polish people loved him and they came out in droves to see him, and to worship openly the son of God (Jesus Christ) whom he represented. It was reported that one third of the Polish people actually saw the new Pope in real life, and the other two thirds either watched him on television or heard him on the radio.

It was in 1942, after toying with the idea of becoming an actor that Karol Wojtyla entered a seminary to start training for the priesthood, and it was during that period of time when he was credited with saving the lives of some Polish Jews who were attempting to flee from Nazi roundups.

Pope John Paul II had a phlegmatic temperament and he was a powerful peacemaker. He lived through World War II narrowly escaping from being captured by the German Gestapo, but after the war he was forced to suffer the indignities of living under post war communist rule. Poland was behind the Iron Curtain. The ‘Iron Curtain’ was the physical boundary that separated free Western European countries from communist ruled Eastern European countries, and it collapsed with the fall of the Berlin wall.

The Pope was an intellectual and a philosopher who was able to communicate in twelve different languages. When he was only twenty years old, Wojtyla’s father died leaving him all alone in the world. Karol Wojtyla felt a deep humiliation when Germany invaded his country and this invasion triggered a lifelong determination in him to oppose evil wherever and whenever he could. One fifth of the population of Poland died during World War II and many of them died in Auschwitz, the German concentration camp that had been built in his own country.

Germans considered Slavic Poles to be inferior people and many Polish people ended up as slave labor working for the Germans. After the war, it was Josef Stalin who laid claim to Poland, the iron curtain of communism folded around the country and the Soviet government proceeded to try to crush the religious beliefs that Polish people held dear to their hearts. The Polish people used to say, “We lost the war twice, once to the Germans and then to the Russians.”

But Communism never quite managed to stamp out Christianity in Poland; it was there waiting to rise up again which it did the day that their beloved son Pope John Paul II came back to visit the country he was born in.

Regimes that rule by inflicting fear on the population will fall when the people loose their fear of the regime and stand up for their human rights. Pope John Paul II is credited with helping the Polish people to lose their fear. He liberated them from fear by his very presence in the country. Communism in Poland fell in 1989 and Pope John Paul II did live to see it. He died in April 2005.

Karol Wojtyla was a very pious little boy thanks to his religious upbringing and his phlegmatic temperament. Phlegmatics who are devoted to the Cross of Christ tend to be the most humble, the most obedient and the most serene of any other temperament type. It has been said that Phlegmatics are the most Christ-like of the other three types, but by Christ-like they mean in the popular, modern day, preferred image of a gentle Jesus, meek and mild. But the historical Jesus wasn’t meek and he wasn’t mild.

Pope John Paul’s mother died when he was nine years old. His older sister had died before he was born, and his elder brother with whom he was very close died from scarlet fever some years later. These deaths affected him greatly.

When he was a boy, Karol had many Jewish friends because the population of the small town where he grew up was twenty percent Jewish. One of these Jews became his lifelong friend and in March, 2000, Pope John Paul II made a five day pilgrimage to Israel where he met up with Israelis who knew him as a child. He is reported to be the first Pope who ever visited a synagogue, and he did advance some kind of reconciliation between the Papacy and the Jews thereby lessening the enmity between them.

Karol was raised by his father who is reported as having been a kind and devoted man who spent lots of time with his only child. The father was a deeply religious man and his teachings were instrumental in guiding Karol Jȯzef Wojtyla into a life of service to God. Pope John Paul II is quoted as saying, “It’s not what you have that’s important; it’s who you are that’s important.” His natural phlegmatic instincts, his faculty of reasoning and his humble beginnings made him into the man that he was. This saintly priest could not have been such a saint if he had been born with a different temperament.