Thirty years ago, on November 18, 1978, Jim Jones ordered the mass “revolutionary suicide” of 909 of his followers in Jonestown, Guyana, as well as the murder of a U.S. congressman, Leo Ryan, and others who accompanied him on his visit to investigate Jonestown.
Jones was a communist who admired Stalin and North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, and who wanted to move his commune to the USSR. He was not religious. He stated, “We do not accept religion,” characterizing it, in Marxist terms, as the “opiate” of the people.
Jones was plagued by conspiratorial delusions. Deborah Layton Blakey, a member of Jones’ Peoples Temple for seven years, wrote in a June 15, 1978 affidavit:
Jones saw himself as the center of a conspiracy. The identity of the conspirators changed from day to day along with his erratic world vision. … He convinced black Temple members that if they did not follow him to Guyana, they would be put into concentration camps and killed. White members were instilled with the belief that their names appeared on a secret list of enemies of the state that was kept by the C.I.A. and that they would be tracked down, tortured, imprisoned, and subsequently killed if they did not flee to Guyana.
Blakey wrote: “in Jonestown, the concept of mass suicide for socialism arose. Because our lives were so wretched anyway and because we were so afraid to contradict Rev. Jones, the concept was not challenged.”
Mass suicides were rehearsed and, following Ryan’s visit, one was ordered by Jones. In a final act, he tried to give seven million dollars he had hoarded to the Soviet Communist Party. The letter to the Soviet consul in Guyana explained, “we, as Communists, want our money to be of benefit for help to oppressed peoples all over the world.”
The 918 people who died 30 years ago at Jonestown were victims of Jones’ megalomania, conspiracy thinking, and communist delusions.
Todd Leventhal has researched false stories for 15 years, including Soviet and Iraqi disinformation, false organ trafficking rumors, and September 11 conspiracy theories. Todd also worked as a journalist and radio broadcaster for the Voice of America for seven years, covering Soviet affairs in the 1980s and African issues in the 1990s.
He has a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, a Masters in Russian Area Studies from Georgetown University, and a Bachelors degree in finance from the University of Colorado.
Comments (2)
Richard Hannay
25 November 2008 at 20:54 EST
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November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar.
918 people died on 9/18.
Furthermore, I first heard of the Jonestown Massacre last week while reading VALIS (Philip K.Dick) on what was, give or take a few days, the thirtieth anniversary of the incident.
Spooky.
Lola
2 January 2009 at 04:56 EST
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Interesting and valuable article. Message to Richard and other people plagued by cognitive illusions. Superstitions are, along with conspiracy thinking and cults (religious or not), attempts to provide sense in a world that is complex and not always easy to explain. For many people, disenchanted by life and unable to give “meaning” to their own lives, adopting the paranoiac certitudes of people like Jim Jones, seem to provide comfort. This relief is always only temporary, especially because the response is inadequate, fallacious, and entails giving up your own right to think.