Hellman countered her star: "I don't believe in that fine, lovable little Republic of Finland that everyone gets so weepy about. I've been there and it seems like a little pro-Nazi Republic to me." Bankhead, who hated Nazism and had become a strong critic of Communism since the mid 1930s Great Purge and for what she saw as a communist betrayal of the Second Spanish Republic, was outraged by Hellman's actions and thought Hellman a moral hypocrite. Hellman had never been to Finland. Bankhead and the cast suspected that Hellman's refusal was motivated by her fanatical devotion to the Stalinist regime in Soviet Russia. Hellman and Bankhead became adversaries as a result of the feud, not speaking to each other for a quarter of a century afterwards.