Hungarian Party to Change Image

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s ruling Communist Party blamed itself Saturday for the current national crisis and resolved to turn into a humane socialist party committed to a mixed market economy and a welfare state.

“State socialism has brought Hungary into a critical situation,” the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (HSWP) said in a lengthy draft policy program published in the Party daily Nepszabadsag.

“The HSWP dissociates itself from all versions of Stalinism but at the same time feels responsible for the crisis and considers it its duty to take a part in overcoming it,” it said.

With Poland, Hungary has been in the forefront of the reformist wave sweeping across Eastern Europe, to the dismay of hard-liners, notably in Czechoslovakia and East Germany.