So when international meetings and discussions were held the USSR decided who got invited and who didn't. Also the USSR would help finance countries but it wanted those countries to be made in it's own image.

It was Lenin's idea to have socialism without democracy. This idea was not accepted at all among those at the forefront of the socialist movement before the Bolshevik revolution. BUT he ended up being the leader of the first socialist country. So he installed his idea of socialism which was way out of sync with what the socialist movement had been all about.