What do you mean? What is an ‘ideological’ dependence in this context?

I mean two things by that. First that the USSR was positively upheld as a the leader of the world revolution (which I don’t think could be avoided) and when it capitulated it did a lot to discredit communism globally. The second, which I think is more important to the argument I’m making is that allies of the USSR were generally expected to accept a level of ideological influence and stay somewhat consistent with the CPSU line. This included de-Stalinization, the implementation of Libermanism, certain geopolitical positions, etc. There was immense pressure to conform to and copy the USSR’s example, and this often led to poor outcomes like the East German NES. The effect this had was to weaken the local party’s own flexibility and ideological development. This, along with other forms of chauvinism and more direct meddling, was the impetus behind Kim Il-Sung developing Juche.

Okay, how else were they to be made independent from the USSR in a world with NATO in it?

It’s hard to say exactly what a post-USSR world would look like were they to have behaved differently, but the socialist world was never even given an opportunity to try. Outside of avoiding direct military conflict with NATO they could at least have been given economies that wouldn’t collapse the instant Soviet policy changed.

Wait, are you talking about the European states that are now engaging in literal colonialism, and not about any of the states/countries from Africa, Asia, or the Americas?

No, I’m talking about a variety of countries, some of them in Europe. I also really don’t think it is fair or a good faith argument to claim that the communist governments of these countries (which made these critiques) should have to answer for the colonialism of the governments that overthrew them. Ultimately China, Albania, Romania, and the DPRK all faced and critiqued these issues, and it was more broadly responsible for the overall unproductivity of comecon. More to the point, this was an issue structurally in socialist countries all over the world. The USSR did not foster effective multilateral trade between socialist countries other than itself, and it’s method of aid through subsidized trade effectively disincentivized it, as well as creating economies that could not even momentarily stand on their own without a benefactor giving them an unreasonably good deal in exchange for their alignment. Cuba is a very simple example of this: it benefited massively from these policies while the USSR still existed, but built up an economy that wholly relied on buying fuel and manufactured goods at way below market value by exchanging them for mostly sugar and tobacco at an absurdly inflated price. This grew Cuba’s economy incredibly quickly, but that growth was structured around an arrangement whose benefit for the USSR was power and strength for its own Communist bloc. When the USSR reduced their trade subsidy in the mid 80s, Cuba entered economic crisis and began defaulting. When the USSR ceased to exist, the special period happened. This is true of pretty much all of the USSR’s allies. They all began to suffer horribly in the Gorbachev-era, followed by economic collapse around 1991. In most cases they were forced into brutal loan terms and economic liberalization to survive.

I am going to suggest that the countries like Korea, Vietnam, Mozambique, Cuba, etc. did not immediately fall back under the same sort of subjugation they were suffering from before their liberation.

No, they certainly didn’t, but they absolutely did suffer and were forced into either isolation and starvation or to accept some level of subjugation to capital. Cuba and the DPRK held out and suffered immensely for it. Every ruling communist party in Africa formally abandoned communism, privatized large swathes of their economies, and entered into deals with imperialist powers. Their economies simply could not function, even briefly, without Soviet subsidy. Mozambique was forced into the Bretton Woods structural adjustment trap starting in 1986, war torn and faced with Gorbachev discontinuing their trade subsidy and cutting their aid. It has been trapped in extreme poverty and imperialist exploitation (with most of the economy being foreign-owned) since then. Đổi Mới also began in 1986 because Vietnam faced a similar crisis. I absolutely think the USSR’s help in their struggles was valuable and important, but the structure of the assistance subordinated them to the USSR, which then abandoned them.

Okay, what things do you think the PRC has been doing in a better way than the USSR regarding their allies?

My answer to that is honestly not much (though they at least aren’t currently repeating this mistake). I hope for more in the future but I can’t say whether that will come to pass. I just think that the way the USSR structured its internationalism isn’t critiqued enough in these discussions, and as a result of their collapse has done more harm to international socialism than China’s weird sectarian realpolitik did. I don’t think that internationally backing communist movements is bad at all, in fact I would point to all it accomplished in spite of the lopsided structure of Soviet aid, but I think it is important to be strategic and avoid their errors in carrying it out.