One difference between the Soviet collapse and this crisis is that the Soviet Union did not collapse from economic reasons directly. The often-mentioned industrial, demographic problems and "enormous" costs of maintaining the Soviet Empire make a nice story, but those factors were never let to play out "naturally". In the real time, hardly anyone was loudly considering the same factors as fatal to the Soviet Union. Compare that with a fairly large crowd of fellow Cassandra's pointing to Ponzite unsustainability of the latest financial boom.

A direct course of the Soviet collapse was Gorbachov's perestroika - the medicine of the (then perhaps indeed) perceived ills of the Soviet system. The disintegration went forward like a train - "no one" could have planned it faster. The system hardly showed any wish of survival; even the August coup was the lousiest possible. Communist insiders profited the most, as if there was nothing unimaginable to them. Say what you will, to me the Soviet collapse looks increasingly like a willful break-up of their social system. (And you know, I have good reasons not to cheer anything Soviet.)

Was the Soviet system workable, I think? It was not the best society network disintegrated by free-market reforms. But if the problems were clear, Soviet bureaucrats gave up very easily.