Yes, he was aware.  If you don't want to believe it, just google Angelo Sodano and trace his interest in propping up right wing dictatorships in Latin America and elsewhere.  Sodano was JPII's Secretary of State and very much into playing global power games in order to blunt 'godless communism'.  There is no room for Catholicism in godless communism and that was very much on the minds of Vatican officials in JPII's days.