Most people in the world don’t know that Jim Jones, of the famous ‘Drink the Kool-Aid’ and Guyana mass suicide of over 900 people, was a communist.

I knew Jim Jones, personally, and interacted with him over the years he was in San Francisco. I heard one or two of his sermons.  Jim Jones was a Marxist. He was 100% a Marxist and he preached 100% pure communism.  He had a visceral hatred of ‘capitalism’ and he made that clear in every sermon. He also channeled the beauty of communist equality and fairness of government support.

Jim Jones’ community heard him lecture every week about the evils of capitalism and the beauty of communism.  His congregation was communist.  And disproportionately older black women.

Now the big fact:  When Jones, Reverend Jones, decided to move his congregation out of the United States he wrote to people in the USSR (Russia) and the Soviet Embassy in Washington and requested asylum for his congregation and himself in the Soviet Union.  

They turned him down.

So then he chose the jungles of Guyana as the new model home for his congregation. He promised a communist paradise.

Jonestown should be remembered as one of the many communist failures.