“As a punishment, to Ústí nad Labem!” The Spanish communist exile in Czechoslovakia and collaboration with the State Security as a form of resistance

Resumen

This study focuses on the issue of the Spanish communist exile in state socialist Czechoslovakia. It analyzes everyday resistance of a heterodox Spanish emigrant, Pilar Gómez, carried out through her collaboration with the Czechoslovak State Security (StB). This insubordination was oriented against the disciplining at the behest of the leadership of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) in Prague, which expelled Gómez from the party and ordered her transfer to Ústí nad Labem. Through the analysis of Gómez’s knowledge (re)creation and the reversal of the discourse on Spanish exiles in Czechoslovakia, the author examines existing power relations between a heterodox exile, the direction of the PCE in Czechoslovakia and the Czechoslovak StB. With a focus on the constructive/productive character of Gómez’s resistance, this article underlines the dichotomy within the Spanish communist exile in the Eastern Bloc as well as the everyday problems of political emigrants living under state socialism.