Objective historical conditions only become politically effective through organized cadres and capable leadership.

Evidence

One might make use of this law metaphorically to understand how a “movement” or current of opinion becomes a party— i.e. a political force which is effective from the point of view of the exercise of governmental power: precisely to the extent to which it possesses (has developed within itself) cadres at the various levels, and to the extent to which the latter have acquired certain capabilities. The historical “automatism” of certain premisses (the existence of certain objective conditions) is potentialised politically by parties and by men of ability: absence or inadequacy (quantitative and qualitative) of these neutralises the “automatism” itself (which anyway is not really automatic): the premisses exist abstractly, but the consequences are not realised because the human factor is missing. Hence parties may be said to have the task of forming capable leaders; they are the mass function which selects, develops, and multiplies the leaders which are necessary if a particular social group (which is a “fixed” quantity, since it can be established how many members there are of any social group) is to become articulated, and be transformed from turbulent chaos into an organically prepared political army. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 785

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci’s account of what transforms a mere movement into an effective party: possessing a developed cadre system of various levels with acquired capabilities.
• XREF: connects to: Natural forces become historically operative only when production harnesses them — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1649