airpig,
All I'll add is that those 5-7 time zones and anti-Russian population all goes back to my original premise, 'political will'. They went where they were told and did what they were told and they kept their mouths shut, otherwise they were headed to a gulag in Siberia (if they were lucky...) The NKVD was very efficient..
As for the Japs, Stalin had a very lucky break with
Richard Sorge. He knew that the Japanese had no designs on the USSR unless;
a. Moscow was captured by the Germans, and
b. The Kwantung Army in China was 3 times the size of Soviet Far Eastern forces, and
c. A civil war started in Siberia.
a. Was a possibility, b. relied on success Japanese in the SPA, and c. was extremely unlikely in any circumstances. The Japs were never a serious concern to the Soviets.