The Republican National Committee backed away Wednesday from a resolution that officially called Democrats the “Democrat Socialist Party,” but instead voted to condemn Democrats for what it called a “march toward socialism.”

The voice-vote came after an unusual special meeting of the party that underlined fractures among Republicans on how to deal with President Obama and the Democratic Party. The original resolution was backed by some of the party’s more conservative members but was opposed by the party chairman, Michael Steele, as well as other Republican leaders. The opponents said the proposal to impose a new name on the Democrats made the Republican party appear trite and overly partisan, and would prove politically embarrassing.

“Calling people names isn’t useful,” said Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi and a former chairman of the party.

Still, while stopping short of officially trying to rename the Democratic Party, the resolution said the Republican National Committee members “recognize that the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” It described the Democrats’ “clear and obvious purpose in proposing, passing and implementing socialist programs through federal legislation.”

And Henry Barbour, a Republican member from Mississippi, Haley Barbour’s nephew and the head of the resolutions committee, denied that the final resolution was markedly different from what had originally been proposed. The alteration, he said, was one of tone only. “We wanted to be respectful but we wanted to be firm,” he said.