Yeah the dissolution of the Soviet Union isn’t really a story of a “totalitarian regime” cracking down and tightening control before the masses come swooping in to restore “democracy”, but more of a counter-revolutionary overthrow allowed to occur via factions within the Party either by the naivety or malice of Gorbachev. In fact, surrendering state control of the media to capitalist forces is an important aspect of the Soviet Union’s dissolution. The media was allowed to fall into the hands of capitalists who were also encouraged to criticize and deligitimize the CPSU.
Some long quotes from Keeran and Kenny’s Socialism Betrayed:
In April 11 1985, for example, Gorbachev called for the release of more administrative information to the public. Soon, Gorbachev transformed glasnost’s meaning from openness by the Party and other bodies, to open criticism of the Party and its history.
In June, the General Secretary met with media officials and urged them to support the reform effort by making “open, specific, and constructive” criticisms of shortcomings. Soon after, the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya criticized the Moscow Party head, Viktor Grishin. Gorbachev then replaced him with Boris Yeltsin, a presumed ally.
…Yuri Afanasyev, soon a partisan of Boris Yeltsin, became head of the Moscow State Historical Archives. These men soon took leading roles in criticizing Stalin and the Party and pushing the most rapid and extreme reform measures
… In short, Gorbachev began to encourage intellectuals and the media to criticize the Party and Party history, while simultaneously diminishing the role and authority of the Party over the media. Indeed, he did not simply diminish the Party’s oversight of the media, he actually turned the media over to people who were hostile to the CPSU and socialism.
… Gorbachev opened the door to criticism without limits. “It is time for literary and art criticism to shake off complacency and servility…and to remember that criticism is a social duty.” The next month, Gorbachev and Ligachev met with representatives of the mass media, and Gorbachev said that “the main enemy is bureaucratism, and the press must castigate it without backing off.” A truly anomalous situation thus emerged. The General Secretary, who was the leader of the Party and who had the power to reform the Party and government, was inciting attacks from the outside on those very entities, as if he were a mere bystander, not ultimately responsible for them
… Mike Davidow, a Communist journalist stationed in Moscow, rued, “Never in history did a ruling party literally turn over the mass media to forces bent on its own destruction and the state it led, as did the leaders of the CPSU.”
… Boris Kargarlitsky noted the enormous irony of a powerful campaign in support of privatization unleashed in 1990 by television, newspapers and magazines in most cases still controlled by the Communist Party. “Anyone who doubted the new wonder-working recipe was not allowed to be heard.” The Soviet media monopoly was now capitalist.
I have recently finished Radhika Desai’s chapters in her book Capitalism, Coronavirus, and War: A Geopolitical Economy where she mentions a brief history of the fall of the Sterling. I’m sure you’ve already read it being the news-guy, so I’d definitely be excited to read a follow up on those chapters or the sources she has cited - especially since finance goes over my head and I’d like for it to make sense.