As a Westerner during the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was always my understanding that Gorbachev wanted to turn Russia into a social democracy. Assuming his intentions were pure (which is a whole other question) did American (and In general Western) foreign policy help or hinder Russia’s transition into democracy?
This question applies both to the collapse of Gorbachev’s regime and the subsequent oligarchy created under Yeltsin.
The US foreign policy establishment was largely reacting to events outside of their control, and first and foremost thinking about security and defense concerns more than anything else.
It's kind of a big topic covering a decade or so of history, so some answers that I've written that have touched on this subject that might be of interest:
Why did the Soviet Union collapse - this is a condensed summary of the events with some US reactions.
Why didn't the US created a Marshall Plan 2.0 to help Russia after the end of the Cold War, which talks about the debate whether the US could have provided more economic aid.
An answer about what the US state department thought would happen in the USSR in 1991 - what it got right and what it got wrong.
Here is an overview of Soviet nuclear weapons, and US involvement in pushing for disarmament.
Finally here is an answer discussing the 1996 Russian Presidential election and allegations of US interference.
I can definitely answer any follow up questions! Overall I would sum up that the US government was struggling to catch up to a dizzying pace of events in the USSR/FSU from about 1985 to the late 1990s. First and foremost were security concerns, especially around weapons of mass destruction. Humanitarian concerns were second, and market reforms a distant third. At the same time, what Gorbachev was trying to build (a re-formed version of the USSR with a Khrushchev or Dubcek-style democratic socialism) was a very different vision from what Yeltsin was trying to build (which even changed over his own Presidency, from a liberal democratic-to-populist free-market Russia to a more nationalist, populist Russia), and so that alone shaped what, say, Reagan saw as US interests in the area in 1985 versus what Clinton saw in 1996.