Do you believe a member of the nomenklatura, closely tied with Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, and the policies of so called “glasnost’” and “perestroika” is going to admit the USSR collapsed because people no longer were willing to live like animals or accept these contrived polices?
The KGB analytic department was tracking the decline of the Soviet economy for decades. I lived in the USSR (the spouse of a Soviet citizen) for part of the Reagan administration and for the year before the collapse. This is also in accordance with analyses of COMECON stats by Western specialists, though frankly, they underestimated the problem, which was revealed completely after the collapse of the USSR.
Incidentally, Gerasimov is on trial for money laundering and theft of state property.