On May 2 1933 Hitler Banned the Trade Unions and Sent Thousands of Workers and Trade Unionists to the Concentration Camps

81 years later, on May 2 2014, Trade Union House in Odessa was Burnt to the Ground – Over 100 People Were Murdered by the Fascists and the AWL's Allies in Ukraine

Hitler proclaimed May 1 1933, as a national holiday. He told the workers:

“You will see how untrue and unjust is the statement that the revolution is directed against the German workers.”

The next day, Hitler ordered the Sturm Abteilung (SA) to destroy the trade union movement. Their headquarters were occupied, union funds confiscated, the unions were dissolved and their leaders arrested. Many ended their lives in Dachau. 169 different trade unions were put under Nazi control as the Nazis established the Labour Front under Robert Ley as a means of controlling the German working class.

Memorial lights in memory of the murdered anti-fascists
On May 2 2014 after an attack by neo-Nazis and fascists of the Right Sector, armed with weapons, on peaceful protestors in Odessa, many retreated to Odessa’s Trade Union Centre.

Dmitry Rogovsky of the Right Sector was clear: "The aim is to completely clear Odessa [of pro-Russians]. They are all paid Russian separatists."

burying bodies secretly
The 'liberal' Guardian reduced a fascist atrocity to 'clashes' between opposing sides
What happened was covered up from the start. To the Guardian it was merely a question of “violent and chaotic clashes” between pro-Russian separatists and “pro-Ukraine activists” (i.e. not fascists or neo-Nazis). The Guardian’s Howard Amos told how ‘The seizure of the trade union building was the violent culmination of a day of street battles in this Black Sea resort city.’ Amos reversed what happened.

The clashes began after protesters gathering for a rally in support of a unified Ukraine were attacked by pro-Russia activists armed with clubs and pistols.
The Police stood by and watched as the fascists set light to the building and then entered by side entrances to finish off those who were still alive. Many of the photos in this blog are extremely disturbing but I have made the decision that it's better to tell the truth about these fascist barbarities than to obscure it. It is also best to make it clear just who the friends of some on the British left - in particular the AWL, ACR and RS21 - are.
What is happening today is a direct result of the events surrounding the burning alive and murder of ordinary trade unionist and protesters in Odessa in 2014. Yet there are some sections of the Left in Britain, who refuse to see it that way and seriously believe that the real issue is one of Ukrainian self-determination rather than an attempt to suppress ethnic Russian Ukrainians and their national and linguistic rights within a Ukrainian federation. To say nothing of the continuous expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe.
We can expect no better of the pro-imperialist Alliance for Workers Liberty which has a 40 year old record of backing US wars, whether it is in Iraq, Afghanistan or Israel. Despite its concern over ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party the AWL has no problem covering for Ukraine’s neo-Nazi battalions.

What is surprising is that Anti-Capitalist Resistance, the British section of the 4th International under Gilbert Achcar, a Professor at SOAS, London University, has taken a similar position. An article by AWL’s Sacha Ismail Using "anti-imperialism" to avoid siding with Ukraine sides with Achcar in his debate with the SWP’s Alex Callinicos. That fact alone should tell ACR that something has clearly gone wrong with their politics as they end up cheerleading NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine.
Despite the SWP’s wrong characterisation of what is a civil war in Ukraine as ‘inter-imperialist’, Callinicos at least understands that US and NATO expansion is the cause of the war.
Fascist Militia on the march in Odessa
The same does not apply to Achcar whose article Contemptuous Denial of Agency in the Name of Geopolitics and/or Peace positively delights in supporting NATO’s war mongering. Not a word about the fascist militias leading Ukrainian resistance.
Despite ACR’s professed commitment to open debate, they first refused to publish a reply by me and then, having been pressurised into allowing my response then deleted all the comments! The Trotskyist left in Britain have problems with debate and discussion It is as if they instinctively know that their formulaic positions don’t stand up to close examination.

Today we have the neo-Nazi Azov battalion integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard, armed and trained by the United States and British military as well as Israel. See Why is Israel arming Ukraine’s neo-Nazi militias?

If you want to understand the background to what is happening in Ukraine I highly recommend John Pilger’s The rise of fascism is again the issue. Written in March 2015 Pilger presciently predicted what is now taking place. He wrote of the attack on the ethnic Russians in the East and he described the absorption of Crimea back into Russia after an overwhelming and free referendum of its people.

If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained “pariah” role in the West will justify the lie that Russia is invading Ukraine.

The Kiev regime turned on the ethnic Russian population in the east with the ferocity of ethnic cleansing. Deploying neo-Nazi militias in the manner of the Waffen-SS, they bombed and laid to siege cities and towns. They used mass starvation as a weapon, cutting off electricity, freezing bank accounts, stopping social security and pensions.

More than a million refugees fled across the border into Russia. In the western media, they became unpeople escaping "the violence" caused by the "Russian invasion". The Nato commander, General Breedlove - whose name and actions might have been inspired by Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove - announced that 40,000 Russian troops were "massing". In the age of forensic satellite evidence, he offered none.

I found this the most shocking of all the pictures reproduced here

These Russian-speaking and bilingual people of Ukraine - a third of the population - have long sought a federation that reflects the country's ethnic diversity and is both autonomous and independent of Moscow. Most are not "separatists" but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland and oppose the power grab in Kiev. Their revolt and establishment of autonomous "states" are a reaction to Kiev's attacks on them. Little of this has been explained to western audiences.

On May 2, 2014, in Odessa, 41 ethnic Russians were burned alive in the trade union headquarters with police standing by. The Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh hailed the massacre as “another bright day in our national history”. In the American and British media, this was reported as a “murky tragedy” resulting from “clashes” between “nationalists” (neo-Nazis) and “separatists” (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine).

The New York Times buried the story, having dismissed as Russian propaganda warnings about the fascist and anti-Semitic policies of Washington's new clients. The Wall Street Journal damned the victims – “Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says”. Obama congratulated the junta for its “restraint”.

Below are two excellent articles from the World Socialist Web Site. The first article shows the lengths to which the New York Times and the western media went to cover up the atrocity. The second article What took place in Odessa on May 2? describes in harrowing detail the fascist attack on protesters in Odessa, aided and abetted by the Ukrainian state.
New York Times covers up fascist atrocity in Odessa
5 May 2014

The criminal character of the US-European Union intervention in Ukraine was tragically exposed for all to see Friday when supporters of the US-installed regime in Kiev, led by neo-Nazi Right Sector thugs, set fire to the Trade Unions House in the Black Sea port of Odessa, killing 38 pro-Russian demonstrators who had taken refuge in the building.

The anti-Kiev regime protesters had retreated into the building after the Ukrainian nationalist mob set fire to their nearby tent encampment. Authorities say 30 people died from smoke inhalation and another eight were killed when they jumped from windows and balconies in an attempt to escape the blaze.

According to eyewitness accounts, those who dropped from the building and survived were surrounded and beaten by Right Sector fascists. Video footage shows bloodied survivors being attacked. Ctd....