From “the Hundred Names (Baixing)” to “the Mass (Qunzhong)”: The Evolving Politics of the Multitude in Socialist China

This paper examines the politics of "the masses" in 20th-century China. Since the early 20th century, Chinese leftist intellectuals and CCP revolutionaries have employed various terms—such as Baixing, Renmin, and Qunzhong—to conceptualize the multitude subject to governance. This study compares the traditional concept of Baixing, rooted in the Spring and Autumn Period, with its reinterpretation within the socialist movement’s mass politics. It explores the ideological implications of Baixing, Qunzhong, and Renmin as reflected in the writings of socialist thinkers such as Wu Han, Guo Moruo, and Mao Zedong. I argue that, despite the apparent ideological shift within 20th-century socialist consciousness, the characterization of the governed as passive, silent, apolitical, and often suffering—embedded in the concept of Baixing—largely persisted in the socialist notion of Qunzhong. This passive and apolitical framing of the governed often clashed with the revolutionary ideals of mobilization and agency while simultaneously reinforcing the paternalistic approach of the state.