Michael Parenti, roughly, in defense of the Soviet Union

[minionofmidas]

And he would be wrong. And not thinking particularly Marxian - or particularly realistically at all. Depending how the hell we define the word "Communism", North Korea either still is "Communist", or it never was; it's just yet another example of Asian post-WWI anticolonial liberation movements forced into alliance with the Soviet Union by a noncomprehending West. (And then a brutal dictatorship erected by an - only literally - FF with Texas-sized chips on his shoulders who defeated an essentially genocidal American bombing campaign. With Soviet help, of course. And finally, a tinpot monarchy.)
Note that I'm *fine* with us using the former definition (ie one that accepts that such people are "Communist" if they call themselves that and/or have an uber-statist economy), it's just not all that meaningful. But I would like to insist you need to be aware of the nomenclatural issues involved.

[minionofmidas]

Now? Of course not, duh.

Today such movements tend to describe themselves as Islamist, anyways.

[minionofmidas]

Now? Of course not, duh.

Today such movements tend to describe themselves as Islamist, anyways.

No, never.  Kim il-Sung was a random Korean living in Siberia the Soviets installed as a (presumably) loyal puppet.  Some time later, the NK regime started propagandizing that he was a "resistance" fighter against the Japanese.

No... they started exaggerating his minorish 30s role... leading to the insane southern propagandist claim that he wasn't, in fact, the same man as the 30s guerillero.
 
The more relevant part is that the Soviets installed that seeming puppet because of what they knew of the Korean "Communists" (and because, unlike further away in Malaya or Vietnam, their security interests were at stake and also, unlike there, they could...) and Kim didn't exactly behave as a Soviet puppet, right from the start. (But he did execute his nationalist competitition. He was... not a nice fellow.) Not when compared with, say, Ulbricht.