English

Carlos

Why I read the WSWS

In 1991 when I got a permanent contract with Telefonica, a publicly owned Spanish company until 1997, I joined the trade union CCOO, believing they were defenders of workers’ interests.

In 1992 the unions and the company made agreements, which continue to this day, of mass layoffs and the outsourcing of work to subcontracted companies, with lower wages and compulsory overtime.

In 2005, I realized that the CCOO was not defending the interests of me and the rest of the workforce and I broke with them. Surfing around the internet I found the WSWS, which I did not know before. That’s when I learned about the role of the unions.

I had always voted for the PSOE [Spanish Socialist Workers Party] despite being aware that their economic policies were neo-liberal. I voted for what I considered the lesser evil to avoid the PP [Popular Party] from winning. I never saw the IU [United Left] or the PCE [Spanish Communist Party] as an alternative due to its Stalinist past.

Thanks to the WSWS I broke with the two-party system and the unions, the props of the capitalist system.

In 2005, aged 40, I also began thinking about the eleventh thesis of Feuerbach, explained by Marx, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it”. I made a decision to help transform the world with one objective: to end the capitalist system, which produces so much suffering. To struggle for a society where profit is not the main aim. Where money corrupts everything—social relations are also corrupted. To fight to eradicate social inequality means the struggle for socialism. I had to do something.

In 2006 I wrote to the WSWS and they contacted me. I began my education. I was recommended to read the book The Heritage we Defend by David North, a polemic of the origin and vicissitudes of the Fourth International and its reflection in the history of the twentieth century.

I have since read a small part of Trotsky’s large collection of writings. I dared to read Marx’s Capital, having not done so before because of its reputation as a difficult text. The book is fully current and I regret not having read it before.

In 2006 Madrid hosted an international conference commemorating the anniversary of the Spanish Civil War. Here I met in person some members of the ICFI.

The training of cadres and the need for a vanguard party continues to have full force today. Raising the class consciousness of workers so that we become conscious of our power as a class is the task the WSWS defends with dignity and without concessions.

For permanent revolution!

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