Madness string 101070

Random mermaid
The call went out, to comrade soldiers and former officers alike, to come back to the colours. Well, the new colours. And the idealism of the Red Army died about a month into it existence. That call also went out at the higher levels and senior tsarist officers were brought in as specialists. They weren't particularly trusted, they were given minders in the form of political commissars who held the level of Command Authority as well. However, they did vaguely know what they were doing, and the Soviets were fairly desperate. So desperate indeed, that the idea of elected positions and an absence of ranks was abolished mid-1918 and anybody who didn't like it was a counter-revolutionary, and was then shot.
I've always had a positive outlook on things and am drawn to feel good stories of recovery, forgiveness, reunion, etc, pretty much the 'return of the prodigal son'. But I never really thought about how those stories gloss over the pain and resentment of victims who are unable to forgive unforgivable actions but are inadvertently made to feel guilty and ashamed for feeling that way. We just kind of expect them to just automatically be the bigger person, eventually come to forgive, move on, if not now, then with the passage of the years.