Mass movement? Definitely not. Not everyone has the ability to contribute to science because they lack the basic training. A collective effort of all engineers and scientists in the project? Yes. I don't think you know how science is done in industry or even academia today. Cardsharp and I have both conducted research in both academic and industrial settings. We know how it is done. The bulk of the work is done by BS/MS level engineers and technicians, including design work. The PhDs set the general direction but several experienced BS/MS engineers and technicians can replace them.
The number of engineers and scientists in a society is directly proportional to its technological ability.
Why did I mention Nobels? Because that is taking your idea, that science and technology is driven by "Great men" and no one else matters, to the extreme. The logic goes, if Nobels, the highest prize in science, are great men of science, and that progress is driven by great men, the technological ability of any society should be directly proportional to the number of Nobel Prizes its members have recieved.
South Korea and China both have zero Nobel Prizes. Kenya and India have more Nobel Prizes than China and South Korea. Yet are Kenya and India scientific superpowers, and South Korea and China weak loser nations?
Also its laughable to say that "even today" they're trained in the West. Song Wencong, Xue Chishou, designers of the J-10, don't even know English. Even during the 50's, Qian was the DIRECTOR of the ICBM project, not necessarily its CHIEF DESIGNER. Big difference for anyone that's worked on a technical project. Director is a management position, chief designer is an engineering position.
Chinese space program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From the top, you can see that the demonstration technology provided by Russia was a major contributor.