And speaking from a Russian perspective, your assertion that anyone in the USSR viewed their officials as self-sacrificing and altruistic is quite frankly hilarious.
I have friends who grew up in the Soviet bloc. I once witnessed a hilarious conversation between one of them and another friend who was a committed socialist (I don't de-friend people because of their politics). My socialist friend would say "X under socialism would be better". The other would say "I lived under socialism, and here's how and why X was worse." Socialist would say "but that won't happen under socialism". The other would say "you have zero experience with this, I lived under it. You have no idea what you are talking about."
The back and forth like this would go on for a while.
The back and forth like this would go on for a while.