The Spanish Communist Exiles and Consentful Contention in State Socialist Czechoslovakia

Abstract

This study focuses on the issue of the Spanish Communist exile in state socialist Czechoslovakia. It analyses the everyday resistance of the heterodox Spanish political emigrant José Valledor, which was carried out in the form of consentful contention – a tactic, through which a subordinate actor contests the government’s decisions whilst performing the role of a dutiful citizen. Valledor was able, with his petitions to the state organs while appealing to the regime’s own legitimating value system, to threaten the Czechoslovak authorities with the loss of the regime’s international prestige.