The Warsaw Pact was an alliance of nominally-independent states. They all relied on the USSR in one way or another, but they had their internal dynamics and cultural differences. Their architectural efforts were often manneristic towards Soviet styles, rather than original.

I think USSR relied on many of them actually. Eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia provided best tech and foreign currency source, and the whole area between Germany and USSR was planned to get nuked in case of an all-out war between NATO and USSR, in order to protect USSR's mainland. Fun times for Central European countries I guess, getting shafted from both sides continuously for centuries.

It wasn’t “centuries”, it was barely 50 years. The USSR itself didn’t last 80 years, and before WWII most countries in the area (with the notable exception of Poland) were just fine - in fact, they were pretty happy after the fall of the Austrian Empire. Warsaw Pact countries were still relatively free to chart their own path in non-military matters until the Prague Spring of 1968.

Russian influence on the region is a related but separate issue, but let’s not paint central Europe as some sort of perennial victim.