The war became particularly brutal in 1937. Just as the Blitz later drove the Allies to bomb German cities mercilessly, so the Insurgents bombardment of open cities spurred Ibárruri (speaking as the fourth, newly named vice president of Congress) to demand an equal response from the "progressive bourgeois" government. President Manuel Azaña was an intellectual and a writer unwilling to flout constitutional or international laws. Prime Minister Francisco Largo Caballero was a socialist who was reluctant to cooperate with the PCE. The closing lines of that speech signalled her readiness to endorse radical violence,