The HSWP, as a party created under the influence of the CPSU, generally adhered to Soviet concept of Marxism-Leninism, which regarded as the essence of socialism to be state ownership of the means of production, controlled by a dictatorship acting in the name of the working class. Hungarian ideologists echoed their Soviet mentors. For example, Gyorgy Aczel, until mid-1988 a member of the Politburo, stated that "a society can be called socialist when a new political system and mechanism come into being on the basis of new conditions of ownership."

According to Hungarian Marxist-Leninists, the welfare of the working class constituted the historical goal of the party. However, since 1956 the HSWP has sought to represent the interests of all Hungarians and has devoted greater resources to promoting the spiritual and material progress of the whole society. The party also has come to acknowledge that "a perfect, complete Marxism does not, cannot, and will never exist" and therefore has rejected the notion of a set of eternally valid ideological premises emanating from Moscow. Rather, since the late 1950's the HSWP has sought to adapt general Marxist-Leninist ideas to Hungarian conditions. In the late 1980s, the party considered the country's socialist development to be in a transition between the stage of intermediate economic development and the stage of "developed socialism." Developed socialism promised the intensive development of the economy, emphasizing the qualitative improvement in working conditions and the standard of living, as well as the liberalization of the political system to encourage incipient pluralism and popular political participation.

Data as of September 1989