Vicente Lombardo Toledano (July 16, 1894 – November 16, 1968) 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.
Early career
Lombardo Toledano was born in Teziutlán, Puebla, to middle-class parents, Vincente Lombardo Carpio and Isabel Toledano Toledano; his father was of Italian ancestry, while his mother was from Teziutlán, of Sephardic Jewish descent from the Toledano family. After obtaining his law degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1919, he pursued a master's degree in philosophy and letters there, and he began teaching at both the Popular University and at UNAM. He taught at UNAM until 1933, and it was there that he became a member of an informal group known as los siete sabios (the seven sages). During his tenure at the UNAM, Lombardo Toledano helped to organize a teachers' union. In 1921 he joined the Labor Party.
CROM lost most of its influence in 1928 after a right-wing Roman Catholic associated with the Cristero movement assassinated Obregón. Lombardo Toledano then left CROM and the Labor Party in 1932. He had organized a faction which he called the "Purified CROM" who left the CROM en masse in 1932. This mass flight left the CROM representing only a few unions in the textile industry. The Purified CROM became the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) in 1936, allying with the populist President Lázaro Cárdenas and the ruling Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM), a rival to the Labor Party associated with CROM. Lombardo Toledano was the secretary general of the CTM from 1936 to 1940.