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.