The Soviet reaction to this early Chinese bid for hegemony
over the Asian revolutionary movement was mixed. Moscow
appeared to favor the substance of the Maoist revolutionary
prescription (formation of a broad "united f r o n t r 1 d i r e c t e d
against imperialism and organization of Communist-led peasant
armies operating from rural bases), but Moscow apparently disapproved
of the Chinese Communist undertaking to 'establish
Peiping as the regional center for Asian Communism and."the
theory of Mao Tse-tung" as the fountainhead of Asian revolutionary
doctrine. Soviet propaganda throughout this period
consistently minimized Mao's ideological innovations and
theoretical eminence. In November 1951 Soviet spokesmen took
the offensive by warning that "it would be risky to regard
the Chinese revolution as some kind of 'stereotype' for people's
democratic revolution in other countries of Asia, 'I and ,
nearl-y a decade later, during the bitter exchanges at the
height of the Sino-Soviet dispute in 1960, the Soviets were
to cite this episode as an example of "sectarianism" in the
international Communist movement.