Due to a continuiing fall in support in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the party flirted briefly with a rightward move towards eurocommunism and democratic socialism. This, in turn, provoked the protest of the party's core supporters, who saw little difference to social democracy, and feared a weakening of the communist cause. Following the reforms, more than one third of the party's members left. The leadership of the KPÖ eventually backtracked from these changes, and the party restored the connections to the CPSU. Having previously had 150,000 members directly following World War II, the party's ranks shrank to approximately 35,000 in the 1960s and to a few thousands in the 1970s. As of 2005, membership stands at about 3,500 members. The KPÖ was represented in the National Council from 1945 until 1959, in the state assemblies ("Landtage") (with some interruptions) of Salzburg until 1949, in Lower Austria until 1954, in the Burgenland until 1956, in Vienna until 1969 and in Carinthia as well as Styria until 1970. In Upper Austria, the Tyrol and Vorarlberg the KPÖ never held state representation. With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the KPÖ saw itself confronted with new challenges regarding its philosophy and future. The experiment with a moderate form of eurocommunism was not well received with its core supporters; however, moderate voters could not be persuaded either. The KPÖ faced difficult times during a period where communist parties throughout the world were receding. In January 1990 two new leaders, Walter Silbermayr and Susanne Sohn, were appointed to renew the party and uncover errors and mistakes which were made in the past. The attempts by Sohn and Silbermayr to create a leftist alliance ("Wahlbündnis") for the 1990 National Council elections failed. The party lost about a third of its members during the process. In March 1991, only three months later, both chairpersons resigned, with their course of renewal being insufficiently supported internally by party-members. The party has consistently been critical of the NATO and the European Union, comparing Austria's accession to the EU in 1995 to the "Anschluß" by Nazi-Germany. The party campaigned against the European Constitution in its planned form; however, it does not regard leaving the European Union as an immediate priority, but as a long-term goal. Until 2003, there was an official celebration on the Jesuitenwiese in the Vienna Prater park, normally held each year in the first weekend of September.