Thomas Kampen's "Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and the Evolution of the Chinese Communist Leadership" argues that they were only a coherent group in Moscow, opposed to both Kuomintang and Trotskyist influences among Chinese students. It's also claimed that they did return to China at various times, but failed to form an effective faction. Additionally, there are questions as to whether the entire group gained notoriety only by association with the theories of the most prominent member, Wang Ming. Frederick Litten writes agreeing with Kampen that there was no such faction in the Jiangxi Soviet and goes further to question whether the group acted in any kind of coordinated way at all. Litten's view is that the idea of a 'Leftist' versus 'Maoist' dichotomy at this time is a later invention retrospectively applied.