Under his leadership, the party later became a guerrilla organization that was active in the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range of Guerrero.

He became politically active when he studied at the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School and was a leader of the local student union.

According to the Mexican government, Cabañas and three other guerrillas were found in El Otatal, Tecpan de Galeana, and were killed in combat on December 2, 1974.

[3] There are a number of legends about Cabañas, including that he had five women bodyguards and carried a bag full of money that he distributed to the poor.

During recent social movements, including the 2006 clashes between teachers and the state government of Oaxaca, his face appeared on banners alongside those of Guevara and Vladimir Lenin.

The writer Carlos Montemayor recounts the history of the Party of the Poor and the life of Cabañs as a guerrilla in his 1990 book Guerra en el Paraíso (War in Paradise).

[5] On 3 July 2011, it was reported that the widow of Cabañas, Isabel Ayala Nava, was assassinated, along with her sister, as the two women exited a church in Xaltianguis, Guerrero.