They favoured the establishment of a Scottish socialist republic, independent of the United Kingdom.
They contested only one parliamentary seat, Glasgow Central at the by-election there in 1989 where they polled only a few votes before folding the following year. Many of their members subsequently returned to the SNP.
They published a regular magazine, Socialist Scotland.
This party was in no way related to the Scottish Socialist Party established in 1998, although there are remarkable similarities between their policy programmes.