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Didn't the USSR also do what you're criticizing though, for example, in Finland?
Soviet expansionism in Finland/Baltics (and later Eastern Europe generally) can be legitimately criticized (in short because it trampled over the self-determination of the people there), but not with OP's argument, which is highlighting what was different:
your exportation of ideology is sending military force to coup a country that represents a threat to your hegemony, who didn’t asked to be overthrown, based on lies you told your citizens and in the process committing multiple war crimes
In the 1930s, the USSR's hegemony wasn't being threatened by Finland or the Baltics - the USSR had no hegemony outside its borders. (There were a few friendly communist parties in the world, but no hegemony.) By contrast, the US has a neo-imperialist grip on the world - most countries must dance to the Washington Consensus, participate in global institutions dominated by the US and its rich allies. That system is enforced by invasions, interventions, coups, sanctions, etc.
The USSR's reason for its aggressive foreign policy was different - it was acquiring allies, strategic depth, and buffer states in defense against Nazi and capitalist aggression, of which there was a long pattern. (In comparison, the West was never invaded by any communist state, and the US by no one at all.) With Finland and the Baltics there was the added reason that they had broken away from the Russian Empire during the Russian Civil War, those countries had significant Red/Communist factions that simply lost the war.
The contrast is even greater in the ideology exported to the Third World - neocolonialism vs. anti-colonialism, slavery vs. liberation.
In the 1930s, the USSR’s hegemony wasn’t being threatened by Finland or the Baltics - the USSR had no hegemony outside its borders.
The USSR’s reason for its aggressive foreign policy was different - it was acquiring allies, strategic depth, and buffer states in defense against Nazi and capitalist aggression, of which there was a long pattern.
I don't really understand what you mean by "hegemony" then. I would think that the examples you give of acquiring allies, strategic depth, and buffer states, are all examples of hegemony outside one's borders.
Look, if you wanna say, "The USSR's aggressive FP was justified because they were fighting Nazis/it was necessary to survive/whatever" then cool. But that doesn't seem to be what OP is saying, which seems to be more along the lines of "The USSR expanded peacefully through education and trading, not through military force and coups," which just isn't accurate, at least not entirely.
OP is talking about "exporting ideology", which is a subset of FP, and I infer the context to be the Third World in the Cold War. It's comparing US vs. USSR toward Africa, Asia, Latin America. So Finland is outside that scope.
My answer to you strayed from that scope, because I subconsciously used the IR definition of "hegemony" (sorry for not specifying explicitly) and that one tends to refer to the US:
In international relations, hegemony refers to the ability of an actor with overwhelming capability to shape the international system through both coercive and non-coercive means. Usually this actor is understood to be a single state, such as Great Britain in the 19th century or the United States in the 20th and 21st century. ... Hegemony is distinct from Empire because a hegemonic power rules by influencing other states rather than by controlling them or their territory. ... The literature on hegemony tries to explain the United States’ role in the international system as a function of its privileged position within the system. Source
...But thinking on it, you could definitely argue that the existence of pro-communist factions in Finland/Baltics/Weimar Germany/Spain and the USSR's involvement in their politics was indeed an exercise in hegemonic power. So I think OP's argument is strongest for outside Europe, where the USSR supported movements that were for self-determination, economic progress, and socialist principles, while the West sought to continue colonialism, neocolonialism, and other exploitative schemes.
