Campbell's glorification of the military strength and masculine virtues of Franco's Spain drew a poor reaction back home, and his reputation suffered considerably as a result. Campbell had been a strong opponent of Marxism for some time, and fighting against it was also a strong motivation. In his poem "Flowering Rifle", Campbell mocked the combat deaths of Republican soldiers, praised the Nationalists for defending the Church, and accused Communists of committing far more heinous atrocities than any Fascist government. In a footnote attached to the poem, he declared, "More people have been imprisoned for Liberty, humiliated and tortured for Equality, and slaughtered for Fraternity in this century, than for any less hypocritical motives, during the Middle Ages."