one of the most recent examples - USSR - the low oil prices of the 198x coupled with the peak cold in the 80 years cycle meant that the resulting low agricultural yield couldn't be supplanted by the required massive import of food, so that time the Russian Empire (USSR) cracked. 80 years before that the Russian Empire had revolution of 1905-06, and while that revolution failed it resulted in a lot of deep changes to the country, in particular agrarian reforms (including introducing peasants' private property on agrarian lands) and huge expansion of Russian agriculture into Siberian regions.
So, i think that one can estimate the probability of "How do you know if you’re living through the death of a specific government instance/structure/order." by looking at the basic Maslow layers - food and security. This is for example why China Communist Party is hell bent on delivering growth and prosperity and stomping out hard measure style any threats to stability, be it coronavirus or dissidents.