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Of the Hegelian dialectic whic Marx and Lenin grasped So eagerly.

The dialectic, writes MacDonald, cannot be dissociated from the idea of catastrophe and revolution, of accumulated energy bursting through opposition Biologically the of ationgs of the existing state its "momentary existence.'' its is impossible The biological view lays the very slightest emphasis on its "critical and revolutionary" side, because it is mainly clearing constructive, and the idea of before build. ing" is alien to its nature .

Behind the attack on Hege in thic passage, the political antagonism to barely concealed. A few pages further on, it bursts forth into the open: class struggle barely exists.

MacDonald saw no need for a theory of value (. . . we need not quarrel about these technical points'). He maintained that 'The Ricardo-Marx economics can be knocked on the head at any time, and socialism would not suffer in the least'. It is perhaps rather an exaggeration to claim that labour is the source of all value. From this casual conclusion, it does not take MacDonald long to deduce that 6 •.. it is not true that there are only two great classes in the community.

Class conflict is being steadily mitigated by 'the goodly number of workers who cross the line and become employers and employers' managers'. In addition, workers are being won over 'psychologically' by such organizations as Building quite recently by the Tory government. They use it to justify a 'wage freeze'.

The other chief flaw in the class struggle as described by Marx is that it 'leaves out of account the middle class'. . Even MacDonald is obliged to admit that, in the Communist Manifesto itself, Marx accepts the possibility that sections of the bourgeoisie will be won to the revolutionary party. But this does not prevent him, as a debased argument to usine the workers in the matter of the actual class basis of their power, supplanting it with the fiction of super-class solidarity'. CONTINUED TOMORROW These articles are based on a reently published book: "Kamsay MacDonald's Political Writings. Edited by Bernard Barker. Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1972. £4 Moscow Trials Anth‹ Paperback, 62}p MAX SHACHTMAN:

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