Daniel Satinsky: Interesting. So, how did 1993 and the constitutional crisis affect you? What were you thinking while that was going on?
Richard Conn: Well, you know, this is during the period when I was working very closely with Burbulis and with…and Burbulis was running the country. So, it had a huge impact in terms of the assignments and the things we were worrying about. There were lots of interesting things we were doing during that time period to deal both with all the transitional issues of taking…of moving from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation.
As a lawyer, as you know, these things just don’t happen by snapping your fingers. You have real property rights to deal with, you have lots of constitutional issues to deal with, you have tons of transitional issues because again, you’re talking about—we had to understand what the Soviet law was, including all the currency issues, all the different bookkeeping, all the power structure, how local industries worked together, how local governments related to the federal government. We had to be thinking about what kind of constitutional structure eventually might exist, whether it would be modeled on a U.S. model, were we going to have the laws be based on common law concepts, or codification as in Europe.
Daniel Satinsky: Or code, or like…yeah.
Richard Conn: Codes. And then all the political battles going on at that time, which, you know, as I was intimating before, many of which are not known, the fights taking place, which eventually bubbled over into Rutskoi and Khazbulatov getting shelled. [
Laughs.] And all of the subterfuges that were happening before that that led to that blowup. And as I said, maybe there will come a time when I can talk more about some of that stuff. But those were some of the most interesting things, I mean, for me by far the most interesting things I will ever have been involved with. So, it had a huge impact in terms of the work I was doing.
In terms of life, yeah, I wanted my family to be safe. I remember machine gun fire outside the apartment. We were living at 99 Leninsky Prospekt at the time, and then we moved out to a community outside of Russia, but I moved them out very rapidly, before we had furniture, and sleeping on mattresses. And I would go in with a driver to get water and other supplies, if you’re talking about the time of the actual gunfire.
But at the same time, we were closing deals. I remember working with Baker McKenzie, with Bill Atkins, who ran the office there, a good buddy years ago, and I remember a conversation along the lines of where should we have the closing. We were representing Citibank in some deal. And we discussed where there were fewer snipers. So, that’s how we chose the location. You know, they had one of their paralegals shot—
Daniel Satinsky: They did?
Richard Conn: Yeah. I think they survived, but I’m not sure. So, you know, this was a complex time. And lots of different power bases. But thank goodness, I would say this, Gennady Burbulis I always found to be a very genuine guy. I took a trip with him back to the U.S. when he was meeting with all the folks here, and he was hailed as the Thomas Jefferson of Russia. And he really was. He was a guy who not only believed in free speech and democracy, and free markets, but was and is a real gentleman and real decent fellow to work with.
Daniel Satinsky: Did you—and you can tell me that I’m asking too many questions about this. Obviously, this is part of what we discussed before. But did you have a sense—well, I have two questions about this. The first question is did you have a sense that you knew that sooner or later the Supreme Soviet was going to have to be abolished and there would be new institutions needed, or were you trying to work around that? Just out of curiosity. If you don’t want to answer that question, then that’s fine.
Richard Conn: I would start by saying in retrospect I can see how fortunate I was to be really centrally involved in so much stuff, but at the time it wasn’t so clear to me. After the first meetings sort of in the Kremlin I didn’t know would there be another one. You just never really quite know what’s going to happen. And its only sort of looking back that I can get some perspective.
I guess the best answer I can give is I did sort of feel that the movement in the country was going to be away from the Soviet structures. I wasn’t spending my time—again, nobody was paying me for this, I was just doing what I thought I should do. I wasn’t working to accomplish that goal, per se. It wasn’t really about that in my mind. It was more about the broader picture transition from a Soviet economy, political structure to something which I did have in mind, which is somewhat of what Gennady and others had in mind, which was a real vibrant free market, democratic country.
And so I was thinking more about what pieces do you need to accomplish that, what laws do you need, and how do we operate and get these orders all in place in light of the fact that you had a Supreme Soviet who was not going to cooperate with all that, because how we began all the process of the ukazy, the orders, the edicts coming down from Yeltsin’s team, which were in my view necessary at that time, even though one can argue there’s a dictatorial aspect to that.
But really what hit me, Daniel, was that during that phase I really felt the limitations of law in the sense that when you’re living in an environment which is sort of a jungle, and there is no order, there are no real courts that function... Yeah, law is important, and we spent a lot of time thinking about what precedents we wanted to set, and how we were going to structure all that, but I have to say I sort of appreciated, back then, that there was a period where we had no choice but to move forward without the, if you would say, the ratification of a legislature.
As an American lawyer, it’s something that makes me really uncomfortable in any normal setting, really uncomfortable. But again, getting to know those guys, the whole team at that time, I felt very comfortable helping them because I knew what we were doing, what laws we were writing, what we were preparing, what the plan was. So, yeah, eliminating the Supreme Soviet I guess I viewed as probably just one of the tiny pieces that would probably transpire.
And there’s a whole story—and again, I’m not going to get into it—but on the four or five questions that were presented to the country, and how we supported that in the campaign and all that, which included the constitution, included these different issues, because we wanted to… I think everyone understood, as you do, the importance of legitimacy. And legitimacy is derived, in my view, from the consent of the population, which, by the way, someone should tell the GOP in the United States that that’s the contract. [
Laughs.] That’s how this works.
And I understand that there are plenty of people who prefer to have power regardless of that. That’s the nature of the jungle, if you will. But we were working towards—and in terms of my willingness to help, I was thrilled to help work towards a system where that consensus would be built. And so yeah, I played a role in that whole structure of the five questions, the constitutional framework to get that consensus. And the importance of having a vote on that by the population, having a campaign around that.
And some of that ended up being disclosed, which was an embarrassment to me, because the guys I brought in had promised not to discuss it. And that almost led to a negative American lawyer article about my work, because they called me, and I basically said I really can’t talk about what I’m doing. And this guy, I could tell, was starting to sort of take it as if I were not comfortable discussing it. I mean, for negative reasons.
Daniel Satinsky: Oh, for negative reasons, right.
Richard Conn: And eventually, I think through some other contacts, he was able to get a picture that was far more accurate, that actually we were doing the things that were, at least from my view as an American—and I don’t mean that in terms of American national interests, but someone who values both free markets and certainly a government responsive to the population, a republic or a democratic structure that works. But some of the groups we brought in did not maintain confidentiality, because they were proud of what they were doing. Again, they were helping Russia become what we thought would be a burgeoning democracy. Back in the good old days.
Daniel Satinsky: The groups you brought in, these are foreign groups that were assisting you as consultants?
Richard Conn: Yeah, one was very public. I can mention it because they went very public with it. So, you would Google it, it was called First Tuesday. It was a group that helped with the campaign.
Daniel Satinsky: First Tuesday, huh? Okay. Maybe I’ll…I want to ask you this question and then I’ll tell you again what my context for it is. How important were foreigners within that process? Let me give you my background and then you answer—
Richard Conn: Yeah, but I get the question. I mean, I think foreigners were extremely important at that time, not just Americans, although I think Americans played a special role because they were viewed differently. But there were also plenty of Europeans there, there were folks from Asia there. One, foreigners were trusted more than Russians. And let me explain that. I think people knew, certainly if I was talking with them in a confidential meeting, that I was not part of some Russian group trying to overthrow the government, or some Mafia group trying to get some advantage here. They could not have that same level of confidence, at this time period, in talking really among one another. There was a tremendous amount of distrust.
And I think Americans, and certainly the groups that I dealt with there, they were proper in being viewed this way, were people of great integrity. They were people who were there to help. Now I’m sure we had also folks who were representative of different governmental agencies who may have also been there to help but also had other agendas.
And the information and advice we were giving I think was very helpful to them. We were also involved in IMF funding, all sorts of different major economic programs that helped the country to form and to be successful. And then we were also vital in terms of helping bring business into the country because, as you know, if you’re a company trying to go into a new environment you need hotels you can stay in, and you need telecom, but you need professionals on the ground who can lead you through in terms of doing deals. So, there were all those elements together that made it, I think, very, very important for people to be there.
And again, there are plenty of folks who also, in my view, spent a lot of time and energy helping Russia in all sorts of ways during that time period, working, whether in privatization—although there are some stories there that may not be quite so perfect. And some people who ended up getting hoisted on a petard, maybe of their own creation. The guy I knew reasonably well named Jonathan Hay who ran the Harvard program. I had a great opinion of Jonathan back in the day, and he did a lot to help. It saddened me to read the stories, years later, about what happened to him. And I suspect where there’s smoke there may be some fire. But at the same time, I don’t know what he did exactly, but I give him high points for what he was doing when I knew him.
He in fact asked me to replace him when he was going to leave in ’95, because he was running the Harvard program. They were working more with Ordzhonikidze and his guys sort of in the ministry, I guess you’d say, of justice—well, not justice, more…yeah, I guess it’s like a justice department, to some degree. But also, they were helping, as was I, and Richard Bernard, another great guy, putting together the equivalent of the Securities Exchange. We did a lot of work on that. So, this is not to, in any way, excuse conduct that—and again, I’m not an expert on what all the accusations were against him and his wife—but I can tell you he made a major contribution back then. Now, he also, because of the scandal, harmed us tremendously, because, as I was saying, its reputation and our ability to work honestly over there, and ethically, that gave us really the power base to be helpful.
Daniel Satinsky: So, there’s a—I’m going to follow that up a little bit—so there’s a kind of a narrative about this period that shock therapy and Sachs, and HIID, and Hay and Shleifer and all, that they didn’t understand Russia, and that they drove the process too fast or too hard of privatization. There’s another narrative that, well, they were right, and the Russians didn’t properly implement what it is they were recommending.
But it seems to me—and I want to get your view on this—that neither one of those is really correct, but that the process was driven by Chubais and Gaidar, Chubais who described himself as a kamikaze, knowing that he had to break up this system of state ownership. And that the Americans didn’t form Chubais’ ideas, they only helped implement the goals that were really Russian goals, that the process was driven by Russians and the internal Russian conflicts, and Americans played a complementary role to the extent that their skills assisted Russians to do what they wanted to do anyway. Is that…what do you think about these various narratives?
Richard Conn: Probably where I can add the most value in terms of what actually happened, and who was doing what, rather than sort of blaming, in a sense, because there’s credit and blame to go around in lots of different areas there. I guess my initial reactions would be... First I would say although I knew Maxim Boycko, who ran privatization, and we had some dealings together, I—and I don’t know quite why—I was not involved in privatization. Although I would hear about the voucher program, there were other teams that were doing that. Other people were involved. Maybe you’ve run across them. But it wasn’t what I or Latham was doing.
And Chubais, although we met many times, I was not working for him and didn’t have any projects with him. In fact, I’m not even sure he would remember me, because we didn’t really interact. I met him mainly through Burbulis and through other people. The same with Gaidar when he was alive. We didn’t really…it wasn’t my focus. I was really so—and I was fortunate to be working with Burbulis. And that was a lot right there. Because I also had to drive the kids to school.
My general flavor, though, I would give to you is that people should be really hesitant about criticizing anyone who’s involved in this period. This was a total mess. I mean, the shop stores were empty. I mean, you would drive down the streets and it was just empty. And I remember thinking—again, it’s very clear in my mind—that we were living during a period, particularly in ’92, ’93, where no one knew who was in charge. No one knew really whom to go to do things. And gradually sort of an order developed out of it.
But at first it was much more of this, again, this jungle flavor. A powerful oligarch type would emerge because he was aggressive, or he was doing this or that, and we law firms, Western law firms, were sort of on the sidelines of those major battles taking place where aggressiveness was being rewarded. Plus, you had the financial insecurity coming from—I think it was two times I would wake up in the morning and find that the currency was gone. They replaced the currency. And fortunately, we were Westerners with dollars, so that was a good thing if you were spending dollars, but a horrible thing for the entire country. How would you like to wake up and be told, you know, that thousand dollars in the bank you have is now worth one dollar, congratulations, we’re giving you a new bill. You can turn in your old ones or burn them.
So, I think…my impression was one, that the Westerners I had contact with—and although I’ve gotten to know Jeffrey Sachs years later through some other friends, I did not know him back then, but I have no doubt that he was trying his hardest, but here’s a guy flying in, right, landing and trying to be helpful. It’s hard to understand all the intricacies.
There’s a major element people often forget, which is both under the Soviet structure and under the current Putin regime—not to get too much into current stuff—but the lines between government and business were either very vague or nonexistent. To give an example, in today’s Russia and in the Soviet period Bill Gates would both be prime minister and the head of Microsoft. So, if you suddenly change the governmental structure and you have sort of this revolution that was transpiring where Gorbachev was exiting, and Yeltsin had been elected, you still had, No. 1, plenty of recidivist organizations that were still trying to maintain power. That was both on the political level, but also, as I’m saying, tied to many major business interests.
So, you were not dealing with what you would have from the U.S. or Western European mindset of a line between the two, so that you could wake up one day and say okay, you’re still Coca-Cola, go do your thing, but we now have a communist government in Washington. That’s not what it was. It was the Coca-Cola guys were part of the government. And so that’s how—and again, I don’t mean Coca-Cola particularly in Russia, because they had Westerners running it then, but…
So, trying to do a transition was extremely difficult because you were not going to get the cooperation of the quote “owners” of all industry in Russia, because the owners were the government. I mean, that’s it, it was the government, and the government was a Soviet mindset government. These guys had all sorts of power structures supporting them. They had at the time still, the KGB supporting them, and the KGB was tied into business, and was running companies, much like you see now in Putin’s Russia. So, to understand the flavor of it, and what was happening, you can’t underestimate the challenge that the Russian government, Yeltsin, Burbulis, those guys had in trying to fight against all of this that’s surrounding them. There’s this image that people I think incorrectly have, you know, the Kremlin is all powerful, you issue an order or whatever. Far from that. Russia, with its 11 time zones, who knows what they’re going to do in one of the oblasts
*. It just doesn’t work that way.
And so I think had I been asked at the time about whether privatization was the right way to go I probably would have said sure, that you had to break down the ownership structure, and you had to start to create some property rights that individuals would have and that the citizens would have. Shock therapy, you know, was there a way to do it slower or with different steps? I’ll be candid. I’ve never done an analysis of it, and I wouldn’t want to speculate if there was a smoother way to do it.
But I can tell you it was a holy mess in ’92, and particularly in ’93 as well. And so no matter what had transpired, no matter what Yeltsin’s team had tried, I’m sure there would be plenty of room for criticism. But I think they genuinely were trying to do the right thing, at least how I think of the right thing, which is to create an environment where people had rights protected, so we had legal structures like courts, and then had private property. And again, I keep saying, don’t misunderstand or underestimate the challenge of transitioning from a nation-state that had no property rights to one that does. That is a massive undertaking. And I don’t know if there’s a clean way to do that. So, that’s a long answer.