East German here, so I don't know all that much of the details of Soviet society before the collapse (but my guess is that the situation wasn't all that different in all former socialist countries).

I would agree that the (East German) state and government was entirely unprepared for its own collapse.

But maybe the people were better prepared because they've been living at the brink of collapse for most of their lives. Shortages of one sort or the other were a normal occurance, you learned quickly to not depend too much on the state, but on family and other people. So when the state "disappeared" people more or less just went on with their business.

And at least in the GDR there was definitely a growing feeling that this couldn't go on for much longer during the 80's, which may have created a "subconscious preparedness".

And of course the "collapse of the GDR" wasn't an "apocalypse-style collapse", but in typical German fashion it was happening very orderly and predictable once the ball was rolling. And (here's a controversial opinion) even though many people had their lives turned upside down in the 90's, lost their job, had to emigrate into the "Golden West", even with all that... being poor in the reunited Germany still was a better life than being "rich" in East Germany (whatever that meant, because there was not much to buy for money anyway).

I'm not sure how people in "the West" would have dealt with its own collapse if the sides had been reversed. Maybe we'll learn in the near future though.