That last point is really important, and a big part of why the Soviets fought Poland. British communist MP Cecil Malone's book "Russian Republic" about his visit talks about, and even prints some forwarded reports on raids by Cossacks and their pogroms in detail. As he put it, the British public needed to know what they armed and supported, no matter how gruesome.

The question of atrocities is one of the hardest to view dispassionately. No man whose civilization and humanity are real can picture to himself the scenes carried by the baldest tale of torture and mutilation without reaction on his emotions, the more violent if suppressed outwardly. As a safeguard we do not allow such details into print in the ordinary course of things, and where they are discovered under British jurisdiction, in however remote a corner of the Empire, they are put down with an iron hand. Under the Tsarist regime the knout was the ultimate reason of the autocratic Government. What tears flowed unseen, what groans were uttered unheard, no man outside the Okhrana of Old Russia can guess. Yet we did not accuse Englishmen who lived in Russia before the War of shaking hands with murderers and torturers, because the Russian people as a whole, by force or interest, acquiesced in the system, and per- sonal action by foreigners was utterly impracticable. When the Revolution overthrew first the old system, then the moderate Duma, the machinery of law and order fell completely to pieces. The fanatic, the crim- inal, the depraved had their day.

I think that any ordinary Englishman who had been present at a scene where gently nurtured women and children were exposed to the fury and passion of coarse, brutal, fanatical elements, would instinctively and without hesitation have disregarded all question of personal safety and of political philosophy, and would rightly and promptly have defended the weak. Though the excuse is offered that this is vengeance for the oppression of these same classes, such scenes disgrace for ever their individual authors, brand them as dehumanized, and put them outside the pale of humanity. But if the French Revolution is any guide, the great mass of normal men and women will be more and more sickened of blood-shedding. In fact, fear of a counter- revolution, and of counter-atrocities is the only fuel that can keep the witches' cauldron boiling.

As to the reality of the counter-atrocities I unwillingly publish a selection of the Soviet Government's reports on this dreadful subject as a makeweight to the charges published by the other side. I do not vouch for them in any way, but let them carry such weight as their internal evidence of truth justifies. But I am justified in remarking that before the War the Cossacks were for Englishmen a notorious instrument of oppression. Every refusal of intercourse with the Soviet Govern- ment throws them back on the extreme and violent sec- tion, every channel of intercourse with ordered demo- cratic Governments offers them overwhelming motives for thrusting back the extremists and for establishing their rule in moderation and civil peace.

Great short read btw, I really recommend it. Though serious trigger warning for the conclusion as it includes actual reports of pogroms https://archive.org/details/russianrepublic01malogoog/page/n10/mode/2up