Individual and Collective Identities of the Beijing Democracy Wall Movement Activists, 1978–1981

Abstract

Drawing on the new social movement approach, this study focuses on the construction and uses of collective and individual identities in the Beijing Democracy Movement (1978–1981). The movement's mainstream constructed a progressive Marxist identity and its individual participants used it to prove the movement's historical necessity and justify its democratic agenda. Combined with the related identity of socialist citizens, the proponents defended the movement against adversaries from without and the right-wing minority within. It is argued here that the way the Democracy Movement activists defined their collective identity offered them a progressive Marxist platform to champion their cause. This collective identity not only precluded confrontational opposition to the Communist Party, but also enabled a more constructive use of both classical Marxist and Western democratic thinking in the movement's agenda.