Led by Enrique Hertzog Garaizabal, Francisco Lazcano Soruca, Waldo Belmonte Pool, and Mamerto Urriolagoitía Harriague, the Republican Socialist Unity Party attempted particularly to revive the position and popularity of the old Saavedristas wing of the Republican Party.

PURS favored anticommunism, ample room for free enterprise, and antifascism, primarily interpreted as opposition to the MNR.

In the 1951 elections, Gabriel Gosalvez ran for the PURS but received far fewer votes than the winner, Víctor Paz Estenssoro.

[3] PURS supported the military takeover which followed the elections, in order to prevent Paz from becoming president on the basis of his popular plurality.

[5] For the 1966 elections, the PURS was a component of the Democratic Institutionalist Alliance, with Hertzog as the coalition's presidential candidate.