Zhdanov's Baptism by Fire.
The death of Stalin and much of the State Defense committee forced Andrei Zhdanov to do much of the work of directing the war and running the Red Army himself; to a greater extent than was true of the high command of any other powers. Zhdanov would dominate the Soviet Union's war effort for the remainder of the conflict. Giraud and his generals coexisted in a constant state of tension. Churchill imposed his will by argument, which prevailed less and less as Slim and Montgomery gained prestige on the battlefield. Truman deferred to the judgment of Cannon, King, and Marshall. Rommel largely presided over rather than directed his chiefs of staff. Zhdanov, however, dictated. All information flowed to him, whether he was to be found during the day or night, whether in the his improvised headquarters on a platform of the Moscow underground railroad, at his country dacha, or at the Stavka Headquarters in Gorky; from him all orders flowed back. He held a situation conference four times a day, hearing reports first at noon, then at four in the afternoon followed by an additional conference at eight in the evening, and finally dictating orders directly to officers of the General Staff between Midnight and three or four in the morning.
The Soviet Politburo in 1947.
Zhdanov established his dominance over the military and the party almost immediately. He installed an old ally, Alexey Kuznetsov, as head of the NKVD and quickly staffed the Politburo with reliable toadies from his days running the Leningrad party machine. Several Generals who were prestigious enough to contest his reign wound up in Lubyanka prison or worse. Old party bosses from the hinterlands met a similar fate, opening the doors for a new generation of brutal apparatchiks. Men like Mao Zedong and Moses Mabhida were elevated to prominent positions of power over the bones of their predecessors. These young party bosses knew that their continued existence was contingent upon their ability to harness their region's assets in service of the war effort. Their demonic efforts paid off quickly. Few villages in Siberia, China, or Africa would be spared in this massive conscription drive.
American intelligence analysts were stunned by the meteoric growth of the Red Army.
These efforts would see an increase in the size of the Soviet army from around six million to almost twenty million fighting men. This was naturally very disruptive economically and, coupled with forced requisitioning of grain, lead to immense suffering amongst the civilian population of the USSR. However, it was a massive enough force to halt the American advance. Over the summer of 1947 the Soviet army forced the Americans out of the Caucasus, the Crimea, and Central Asia.
The Americans were kicked out of Russian Central Asia in 1947.
Zhdanov's greatest accomplishment in 1947 was Operation Rozhestvensky, the invasion of Japan. While a significant portion of the Soviet Fleet was bottled up in the Black Sea, the White Sea Fleet and the Pacific Fleet were still formidable. The two fleets had little hope against the Americans while divided and there was no hope for the White Sea Fleet to repeat Admiral Rozhestvensky's epic journey. Zhdanov insisted that the White Sea Fleet try to cross the Arctic Ocean during the summer months. The fleet, accompanied by an armada of ice cutters, sailed forth from Arkhangelsk in May of 1947 and reached the Port of Magadan in August of the year. This was an arduous task even in the Summertime, but the ever illusive “Invincible Admiral” Yumashev was able to pull it off with “acceptable” casualties. Thus combined, the Pacific and White fleets were able to decimate the small Japanese and American fleets defending Japan. An American carrier task force that attempted to assist was driven back by ground based aircraft, but it was able to distract the Soviet forces long enough for the Emperor and his cabinet to flee to the Philippines. The Japanese, now stripped of their defenses, were subjugated by the Soviet Union once again.