Smudek came back to Czechoslovakia shortly after the war. He became a national hero; his activities were documented and published in various newspapers and he was interviewed by press. He joined the Czechoslovak People's Party and became active in politics. In 1947, he became a victim of a complot when he helped to transfer anti-communist activists (actually agents of communist Defence Intelligence (in Czech: "Obranné zpravodajství")) across the German border. He was arrested and spent two weeks in jail. He was forced to leave the country in 1948, after the Czechoslovak communist coup d'état, when he became an enemy of the state. During his second exile, he lived in France and worked as a private businessman. In the 1990s he came back again to Czechoslovakia.