I keep waiting for a book on this subject. After 25 years still no book. Must be because someone doesn't want us to know. Great thread. 3 major issues.    1. The failing economy   2. Perestroika that introduced some freedom of speech and freedom of media  3. KKK-market Väiski. These ads, that were visible in Estonia.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1THB65u7sQs  Displaying amounts and quality of meat that no soviet citizen could possibly have acquired in their entire life. The official story was that it wasn't meat, just plastic. Or that ordinary finns couldn't possibly afford it. Oh the soviets tried hard to block those tv signals...    The final killing blow was state employees simply not showing up for work one day, and with the whole apparatus gone, the soviet union ceased to exist.