Criminals have often been employed as shock troops by revolutionaries, from the French through the Bolsheviks to the Nazis.
It’s not that the criminals are idological, of course. They’re just selfish, but turning them loose contributes to chaos which helps to overturn the existing order.
The Russian intelligentsia actually praised and defended murders and thugs prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, much as they do now with BLM and Mumia Abu-Jamal.