could eventually be rationalized. The Soviet refusal to recognize the Hague Conventions also gave Nazi Germany the rationale for its inhuman treatment of captured Soviet military personnel. Before World War II Red Army and pogroms The early Soviet leaders publicly denounced anti-Semitism, William Korey wrote: "Anti-Jewish discrimination had become an integral part of Soviet state policy ever since the late thirties." Efforts were made by Soviet authorities to contain anti-Jewish bigotry notably during the Russian civil war, whenever the Red Army units perpetrated pogroms, as well as during the Soviet-Polish War of 1919–1920 at Baranovichi. Only a small number of pogroms were attributed to the Red Army, with the vast majority of the 'collectively violent' acts in the period having been committed by anti-Communist and nationalist forces. The pogroms were condemned by the Red Army high command and guilty units were disarmed, while individual pogromists were court-martialed. Those found guilty could and did face execution. Although pogroms by Ukrainian units of the Red Army still occurred after this, the Jews regarded the Red Army as the only force which was willing to protect them. It is estimated that 3,450 Jews or 2.3 percent of the Jewish victims killed during the Russian Civil War were murdered by the Bolshevik armies. In comparison, according to the Morgenthau Report, a total of about 300 Jews died in all incidents involving Polish responsibility. The commission also found that the Polish military and civil authorities did their best to prevent such incidents and their recurrence in the future. The Morgenthau report stated that some forms of discrimination against Jews were of a political rather than an anti-Semitic nature and it specifically avoided using the term "pogrom", noting that the term's use was applied to a wide range of excesses, and it also had no specific definition. The Red Army and the NKVD On 6 February 1922 the Cheka was replaced by the State Political Administration or OGPU, a section of the NKVD. The declared function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet Union, which was accomplished by the large scale political persecution of "class enemies". The Red Army often gave support to the NKVD in the implementation of political repressions. As an internal security force and a prison guard contingent of the Gulag, the Internal Troops repressed political dissidents and engaged in war crimes during periods of military hostilities throughout