[1] After some years rising through its hierarchy, including spending some time in the Soviet Union studying Communism,[6] he joined a faction that succeeded in overthrowing the long-time leadership of Stalinist Dionisio Encina [es], who had led the party from 1940 to 1960.
[1] He was one of the protagonists of the political negotiations that in 1978 resulted in the first electoral reform that permitted the PCM to obtain conditional registration, allowing the party to participate in the 1979 election, when it won 18 seats and one of its deputies served as Parliamentary Coordinator.
[7] Martínez was a member of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), a political institution he helped to found and finance in its early years.
[2] He was elected its emeritus advisor but his title was removed on 29 November 2009 on strategic grounds, as the result of political struggles inside the party.
This maneuver was called "an act of moral amnesia, of disloyalty to its origins, of shabbiness" by Mexico's National Journalism Prize laureate Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa.