Sen. Hiram Johnson (R-CA) is frustrated that the Foreign Relations Committee is delaying action on his resolution asking the government for its rationale for keeping troops in Russia and he is frustrated at the White House for not responding. He says this shows “that we have no policy in Russia.” Troops yes, policy no.
Britain has tentatively suggested that the Bolshevik government be invited to the peace talks, along with the various competing White governments. No one else seems too keen.
The Japanese delegation arrives. The only non-whites at the conference presently, I believe. It’s still being worked out which countries will be represented and by how many delegates each, but China will be there and won’t be represented by Japan, which I can’t believe was ever seriously proposed but I guess it was.
That the peace talks seem to have accomplished so little is in part due to the powers spending more time talking about out how to remove the Bolsheviks from power in Russia.
Using heavy artillery, the German government defeats the Spartacists in Berlin. Prisoners are being executed, which is a first since the Revolution began in November. It won’t be the last time. Rosa Luxemburg writes, in what will be her last article, “the government’s rampaging troops massacred the mediators who had tried to negotiate the surrender of the Vorwärts building, using their rifle butts to beat them beyond recognition. Prisoners were lined up against the wall and butchered so violently that skull and brain tissue splattered everywhere.”
California is the 24th state to ratify the prohibition amendment. In so voting, the Legislature chooses to defy the results of the prohibition referenda held last November.
So the French do indeed have a phrase for it: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. So for a hundred years we've fought the spread of communism and for longer than that the powers that be have tried ban substances that get you high. Well it's an ethos.
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