On May 2nd, a manifestation was held in Vienna at the Red Army Memorial on Schwarzenbergplatz in memory of those killed in the Odessa massacre. Since 2014, a rally is held annually on this day. This year it was held by the initiative Hands off Ukraine, under the title "Odessa reminds: For a self-determined, independent Ukraine!"
Alexey Albu, a member of the Ukrainian anti-imperialist organization Borotba, and himself a survivor of the massacre, reported that although the course of events and the details of the murder of the 48 trade unionists and anti-fascists (250 were injured) are well known, neither the direct perpetrators nor the principals of the Maidan government have suffered any consequences. This is because the violent suppression of the anti-Maidan movement in 2014 enforced the interests of the "West", the EU and the USA, in the country.
A speaker from the Comintern trade union alliance stressed the issue of the trade union struggle, the wholesale attack on workers' rights since the Maidan, and charged that the major trade unions of the "West" all ignore the massacre to this day. The need for international solidarity against imperialism and its puppets was stressed by a representative of the Anti-Imperialist Front.
In the speech of the initiative Hands Off Ukraine, the importance of national self-determination was emphasized, because the Odessa massacre shows precisely the consequences of Ukraine's subordination to the interests of "Western" imperialism, the sellout of the country, its labor force and industry. The war, which has been raging in the south and east of Ukraine since 2014 and has reached a new stage with the invasion of Russian imperialism, is being fought on the backs of the people. The dead of Odessa remind us that only through national self-determination, only through liberation from imperialist foreign domination is lasting peace possible for the population.