SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY

A major theme in these campaign posters is the search for connections between past and future. Stressing here their founding in 1890, the Social Democratic Party attempts in this poster to build on its record as one of the parties from the inter-war period before the Communist takeover in 1947-8. The combination of a modernized rose and the symbol of proletarian power from the early decades of this century should also be noted. Although the party enjoyed wide name recognition at the outset of the campaign, and although public opinion polls registered some support for welfare state expenditures typical of those advocated by Social Democratic parties elsewhere in Europe, the Hungarian Social Democrats' efforts failed completely. No representatives from the Social Democratic Party were elected to the Hungarian parliament.