Many Finns across the party lines believed that the communists and the Finnish People's Democratic League had pursued their goal of making Finland a solidly left-wing country too vigorously.

They had organized many mass meetings, demanded the dismissal of "reactionary" (especially right-wing) civil servants and claimed that the Finnish government had to adopt even a friendlier relationship with the Soviet Union.

The Social Democratic Party's election slogan was: "Enough already: price hikes, lying promises, opinion terror, forced democracy."

The United States appreciated Finland's desire to remain a Western democracy, despite its close relationship with the Soviet Union, symbolized by the Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance Treaty (FCMA), which was signed in April 1948.

They did not want to form a government with the Agrarian League, claimed the late veteran agrarian-centrist politician Johannes Virolainen, because they feared that they would lose votes to the communists in the next election.