I'll take "whataboutism" for a True Daily Double, Alex.
I'm surprised it's attributed to just the USSR since it's something even kids do (particularly those with siblings: "But my brother was doing it too!"): Anybody who has siblings, knows somebody who has siblings, has more than one child, or knows somebody who does will tell you that argument never works. It doesn't get them off the hook and, ironically, it often doesn't even get the other sibling in trouble.
When it enters the political sphere, regardless of the politicians nation of origin, political affiliation, it almost always produces a race to the bottom in permissible conduct because, as long as somebody is doing something worse than you (and there's almost always somebody who is), everything you do is okay.
Like many of the elderly, politicians often begin losing significant cognitive skills as they age. (I am assuming they had significant cognitive skills at some point in the past.)
It seems that there is a tendency in some nations for the average politician at the upper level to be getting older. While I have no problem with the elderly (I was raised by my grandparents), some suffer cognitive declines (a problem
noted by a pharmacist of all people, though I don't believe this problem is specific to any specific country) which can be dangerous when people are in positions of policy-making.
This problem dogged the former USSR until Gorbachev got into office. Mikhail Gorbachev wasn't young -- he was in his 50's if I recall, but he was the youngest member of the Politburo.