Jacobinism exemplifies the ex novo formation of a collective will.

Evidence

The abstract character of the Sorelian conception of the myth is manifest in its aversion (which takes the emotional form of an ethical repugnance) for the Jacobins, who were certainly a “categorical embodiment” of Machiavelli’s Prince. … The Modern Prince must have a part devoted to Jacobinism (in the integral sense which this notion has had historically, and must have conceptually), as an exemplification of the concrete formation and operation of a collective will which at least in some aspects was an original, ex novo creation. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 608

Categorization

• XREF: Gramsci’s rehabilitation of Jacobinism as a creative political model connects to later theorizing of revolutionary vanguards.