Although a number of Eisenstein's contemporaries quite openly criticised his montage theories, there was no more prominent critic than Vsevolod Pudovkin.

For Pudovkin, editing involved using shots as building blocks rather than fragments for collision.  As he himself pointed out, 'If the editing be merely an uncontrolled combination of the various pieces, the spectator will understand (apprehend) nothing from it; but if it be co-ordinated according to a definitely selected course of events or conceptual line, either agitated or calm, it will either excite or soothe the spectator.'
 

This view informs much of Pudovkin's work.  In his 1926 film, Mother (Vsevolod Pudovkin 1926), we find seemingly unconnected shots spliced together to form one coherent and co-ordinated whole.  Shot-reverse-shots, where an action is complimented by a corresponding reaction, are found throughout the film, as the clip opposite illustrates:

Such was the conflict of views between Pudovkin and Eisenstein, that the latter was prompted to write in his essay, 'The Cinematic Principle and the Ideogram':

In front of me lies a crumpled yellow sheet of paper.  On it is a mysterious note: "Linkage-P and Collision-E."  This is a substantial trace of a heated bout on the subject between P (Pudovkin) and E (myself).

This has become a habit.  At regular intervals he visits me late at night and behind closed doors we wrangle over matters of principle.  A graduate of the Kuleshov school, he loudly defends an understanding of montage as a linkage of pieces.  Into a chain.  Again, "bricks".  Bricks, arranged in series to expound an idea.(17)

Yet, when we examine Pudovkin's films closely and, even his writings, his theories seem rather confusing.  For example, in 1928, he wrote a lengthy article praising Eisenstein's October and appeared to almost endorse the idea of dialectical montage:
 

On the screen one sequence follows another.  Saturated with the single rhythm of a slow and powerful movement, they alternate in the same rhythm, quietly and surely: a downward fall slides across into an upward ascent, the horizon falls, upwards again, a slide across, a fall, up goes the dead white horse hanging over the edge of the bridge, a slide across, upwards, the clean river and the horizon fall downwards, swim upwards...the audience is completely seduced by the rhythm, the audience is captivated.(18)

Indeed, in several sequences from The End of St Petersburg, arguably Pudovkin's most Eisenstinian film, dialectical montage is found to be quite clearly operating.  As the clip opposite illustrates, several sequences were built upon a juxtaposition of shots which involved a conflict of directions (i.e. the horses facing in opposite directions), a conflict of movement (the man static and sleeping juxtaposed with the movement of the driver), a conflict of masses and a conflict of scales.

It is thus clear that Pudovkin had a decidedly ambivalent attitude towards montage.  The 'heated' debates he had had with Eisenstein betray the fact that Pudovkin clearly admired the work of his contemporary, even (some would say hypocritically) utilising a similar style of montage for certain films.