What have they got to hide?

Revelations that the British state maintains a secret stash of files on all manner of people who disagree with the injustice inherent in current society underlines the hypocrisy of this propaganda.

The scale of surveillance and the methods used by organisations such as the GDR's infamous Stasi and other now long gone states was ultimately disastrous.

Undoubtedly it played a part in the eventual rebellion of alienated younger generations in the socialist bloc.

In the GDR major advances were made in housing, welfare, education, women's rights and economic equality, rebuilding the country from the ashes of WWII.

But in the midst of cold war intrigue and inter-generational paranoia people's growing desire for broader social change was fatally overlooked, as was noted in these pages last year by the last prime minister of the GDR and now Left Party activist Hans Modrow.

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However the West's concern at depicting socialist ideas by the prism of past state policies hundreds of miles away from these shores is not motivated by actual concern over such methods.

Far from heralding a new dawn of freedom, there's a grim irony in the German government's policy of keeping the spirit of the Stasi alive by blatantly spying and monitoring members of the Left Party, among many thousands of others, which is a democratic coalition of left forces with 168 councillors across the country, eight MEPs, and 76 MPs in the Bundestag.

It is clear too that the British Establishment's threadbare deployment of the historical "Stasi bogeyman" is designed to smear any potential threat that home-grown progressive ideas pose to the interests of finance capital.

All the while the British secret state has deployed precisely the same methods against its own population, focusing on "trouble-makers" and "political undesireables" in the left and trade union movement.

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The Morning Star agrees wholeheartedly with the line peddled by hypocritical politicians that spying and meddling in the lives of innocent citizens is a disgrace. The difference is that this paper actually believes it.

Make no mistake, the level of detail even in those files that have been released and heavily censored reveal just how far the agents of the secret state and their paymasters are willing to go.

Details of love affairs and personal habits filed for later use as ammunition in blackmail, plans to lock leftwingers up wholesale, and secret blacklists that have ruined people's careers forever - all have or are part of the British security state's arsenal.

Its targets are guilty of nothing more than fighting for the advancement of their workmates' wages and rights, and believing in a better society for all.

So we welcome any challenge to these undemocratic policies. Our call to the British government is simple - release the files, acknowledge your crimes and give their victims closure on their blighted lives.

There must be a full inquiry into the entire disgrace - and a pledge to end the harassment of activists.

Claims that it is matter of "national security" don't wash. The cold war has long since ended. What has the British Establishment got to hide?