Below is the text of a letter from DSP national secretary Peter Boyle about the departure of the Marxist Solidarity Network. The letter was sent to Louis Proyect on the Marxism mailing list.

Dear Louis

Are you arguing that the DSP should abandon "revolutionary factionalism"
and re-organise itself as an all-inclusive socialist group?

But the six comrades who recently resigned from the DSP and formed the
MSN (and this was totally unnecessary) accuse the DSP majority of
"liquidationism" because it continues to build the Socialist Alliance,
an all-inclusive socialist party, as does an organised opposition
faction in the DSP. Please note the extensive and uncensored
pre-congress and post-congress discussion in the DSP, an unprecendented
volume of discussion bulletins, a minority of less than 20% of the
membership has been given the right to give counter-reports on
leadership bodies when they've been requested, open criticism of the DSP
facilitated and welcomed on the Green Left discussion list, no
disciplinary action against any minorities.

I agree with Cannon that "factional struggle is part of the process of
building the revolutionary party of the masses; not the whole of the
struggle, but part of it." Socialists who think that socialism is just
factional struggle become sectarian gas bags.

Trotsky said: "“The entire history of Bolshevism was one of the free
struggle of tendencies and factions." But that being obvious, it is no
excuse for socialists today to make a silly subculture based on
parodying Bolshevik history with overblown internal factional struggles
and over-the-top attempts at imposing internal discipline in small
socialist groups. Alas the relative isolation of the socialist movement
in all imperialist countries today means that this craziness will be a
chronic tendency in our movement. The job of serious socialists is to
resist this tendency.

This includes the tendency for many self-styled "Leninists" to forget
what Lenin himself said about the political basis of the renowned
discipline of the Bolsheviks, that it was built upon:

1. “the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and by its
devotion to the revolution, by its tenacity, self-sacrifice and heroism.”
2. “by its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, and—if you
wish—merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working
people—primarily with the proletariat, but also with the non-proletarian
masses of working people.”
3. “by the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this
vanguard, by the correctness of its political strategy and tactics,
provided the broad masses have seen, from their own experience, that
they are correct.”

The DSP is a small group trying its best to engage with broader forces
in struggle. Of the organised left in Australia it is indisputable more
connected to actual struggles. Yesterday, for instance, about 300,000
workers attended rallies around the country against new anti-worker
legislation. Three DSP members were the official platforms in Adelaide,
Geelong and Lismore. But we played a bigger role helping get these
actions to happen, working with other militant unionists against far
more powerful conservative union bureaucrats. No other left group can
say they did the same. Modest, I readily admit, but we are trying to do
more than factionalise against others on the left.

Peter Boyle