Vicente Lombardo Toledano was one of the foremost Mexican labor leaders of the 20th century, called "the dean of Mexican Marxism [and] the best-known link between Mexico and the international world of Marxism and socialism." In 1936, he founded the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the national labor federation most closely associated with the ruling party founded by President Lázaro Cárdenas, the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM). After he was purged from the union after World War II, Lombardo Toledano co-founded the political party "Partido Popular" along with Narciso Bassols, which later became known as the Partido Popular Socialista.

The Confederation of Mexican Workers is the largest confederation of labor unions in Mexico. For many years, it was one of the essential pillars of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, which ruled Mexico for more than seventy years. However, the CTM began to lose influence within the PRI structure in the late 1980s, as technocrats increasingly held power within the party. Eventually, the union found itself forced to deal with a new party in power after the PRI lost the 2000 general election, an event that drastically reduced the CTM's influence in Mexican politics.