A dispersed rural class gains power by aligning its will with the ruling class

Evidence

This process accelerates when the specific “will” of this stratum coincides with the will and the immediate interests of the ruling class; not only that, but its “military strength” then at once reveals itself, so that sometimes, when organised, it lays down the law to the ruling class, at least as far as the “form” of solution is concerned, if not the content. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 839