They literally had an "escape plan" to call "Russia" with whom Jim had conversations.
If you listen to his tapes, at the beginning he was a fire and brimstone Pentecostal preacher... then as it went on the message moved, suddenly he was cursing during "sermons" and literally worshiping socialism. God was no longer a part of the message. At that point he decided they all had to move to someplace that others couldn't get to them so... Africa.
They had practice sessions where he would say the government was coming to kill them, they'd all drink some nasty brown generic kool aid substitute with no sugar in it and he'd tell them they were all going to die then say, "It was a test."
This crowd of starving folk literally killed themselves in what he called "revolutionary suicide" in the name of socialism. Good ole USSR style socialism... During the last tape one woman argued vociferously to save their lives but he remained stubborn... They had killed a Congressperson and the government was going to drop in on parachutes and torture their children. They had to take the step of "revolutionary suicide" to show the world how awesome socialism was....
