He embraced Marxism during his stay in Europe in the 1920s, and he is considered one of the main intellectuals of Latin American left-wing thought, known for his integral study of the Peruvian reality through dialectical materialism in his famous work Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality.

After the year 1930, the party started having problems with the different military dictatorships and right-wing governments, as well as with other political groupings of the age.

It also had to confront the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance founded by Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, a socialist but openly anti-communist movement.

The PCP influenced with its idea to the CGTP, the Students Federation of Peru (FEP), various feminist and intersectionalist movements, supporting the fight for socialism in the world and the Soviet Union.

However, during the 1950s and 1960s, the PCP, led by Jorge del Prado, is thought to have adopted more Eurocommunist and reformist positions which decreased its influence.