In fact, they (apart from a minority of westernized intellectuals) didn't support Communism's downfall because they wanted freedom of speech or freedom of the press. They opposed Communism because its stagnant economy didn't provide them with an acceptable standard of living. An authoritarian or even totalitarian government would have been just fine if only it delivered the economic goods.
You see a similarly naive attitude towards the "Arab spring," where people naively think that those who want to overthrow a Mubarak or an Assad are doing so because they want American-style republican government and capitalism in their countries.
Usually, it's the Left that has silly universalist illusions about the whole world adopting the same form of government and economy. Unfortunately, there are some similarly messianic "conservatives" who think that US political and economic institutions can be exported as easily as Big Macs.
Russia will always have authoritarian governments, just as true western-style secularism won't be sustainable in the Middle East. The only question is what kind of authoritarianism you're going to have.
~Russia will always have authoritarian governments, just as true western-style secularism won’t be sustainable in the Middle East. The only question is what kind of authoritarianism you’re going to have.~
This opinion is an opposite extreme to a neocon ‘nation-building’ blunder. And probably as wrong as an idea that you can bring a democracy via military operation.