“The big thing was being able to identify that their goals and our goals are very similar,” the organiser said.
Speaking with ThinkProgress, American Matt Heimbach revelead that he had visited both Washington, DC, and Gettysburg, Pa, with a representative from the Russian Imperial Movement.
The Russian Imperial Movement is linked to Rodina, a party that was co-founded by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Stanislav Shevchuk, the group’s western European representative, joined Heimbach for a tour of Washington. In addition to visiting museums and historical places, Heimbach and Shevchuk posed in front of the White House, with a Russian imperial flag.
The Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) in the US, was launched in 2015 by Matt Heimbach. The party had invited Alexander Dugin, Russian philosopher for the occasion. Dugin, however could not attend in person, due to the United States’ sanctions regime, and could only appear via video.
Heimbach sounded upbeat about the encounter. “I think [the meeting] was tremendously positive in every regard,” Heimbach told ThinkProgress. “The big thing was being able to identify that their goals and our goals are very similar: being opposed to liberalism, being opposed to really left and conservative reactionary politics, spiritual revival, and nationalist principles. And it looks like we’re really aiming to have TWP kind of be the representative of America at the future gatherings of the Russian Imperial Movement.”
Heimbach, who has called for the break-up of the United States, specifically citing the Soviet Union’s precedent, was one of the organisers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, where white marchers were blamed for “the act of terror” in the “killing” an Antifa protester who had died of a heart attack according to her mother.
Heimbach said he has come closer to his goal of uniting like-minded people. “This is the next step,” he said. “Contact is great — we’ve been in contact since early 2015, but really formalizing us working together in a professional capacity is what has happened now. … [We want] to unify nationalists, to get us working together, talking together, toward this new world. This is really kind of a formal arrangement now of what we can do together.”
According to Heimbach, Russian President Vladimir Putin is the “leader … of the anti-globalist forces around the world,” and said that “Russia’s our most powerful ally”.
While the two groups do not share all policy prescriptions, both would like to see the rollback of a globalist world order.
In 2015, Heimbach led a rally where both Confederate and Russian imperial flags were displayed outside the Conservative Political Action Conference.
A representative from the Russian Imperial Movement told ThinkProgress that they would continue to establish contacts with patriotic and conservative organisations around the world. The spokesperson added that “for us the task is to share the experience of political [and] information warfare.”
The Traditionalist Worker Party and the Russian Imperial Movement, has not been the only contact between patriots and conservatives. The Kremlin has had close relations with American Christians concerning anti-abortion policies, and noteworthy ties with the National Rifle Association.
“When we went to the White House, we took a photo with a Russian imperial flag,” he said. “Hopefully before too long, when we’re able to meet in DC, it will be on the terms of the Russian Imperial Movement [and] the new imperialist tsarist Russia meeting with the delegates from a free and independent white homeland.”
