The early 1990’s are called the ‘special period’ in Cuban historiography. Before this era Cuba’s biggest trading partner was the soviet union. And as the Soviet Union ceased to exist this had some serious economic ramifications for the small island nation. Around the same time the idea of Juche (self reliance) took hold in North Korea.
Juche was absolutely not some invention of the fall of the Soviet Union, it was an ideological pillar of Kim Il-Sung that he first published on in the '50s and, with KJI’s influence especially, it became state ideology in the '70s.
Moreover, it has long been the strenuous assertion of the DPRK that Juche is an ideological development particular to Korea (this was particularly started by KJI). It certainly was not just a word that westerners made up to describe something much more generic so that they can make it more mystifying and scary.
The particular ideological shift that transpired from the fall of the Soviet Union was the explicit abandonment of Marxism, as references to it were struck from the DPRK’s constitution in ~'92. I think that hello_hello’s claim of it being revisionist is difficult to evaluate not because it’s hard to tell if it’s good Marxism (it is not) but because it is hard to tell if it can even be superficially associated with Marxism or socialism at all. The DPRK definitely has for decades been proclaiming it to not be Marxist (or just not talked about Marxism almost at all, eventually) and have contradicted virtually every important point that defines what Marxism is.
To slightly minimize the sorts of arguments that this usually produces, I will still add the usual caveat that the DPRK is geopolitically a historically progressive force and that it is preferable for them to triumph over the occupation that has dominated half of their nation, but the gestures made in the last decade or so to the effect of saying positive things about Marx and co. are completely meaningless and, if anything, might just be a reaction to Xi’s own questionably-substantive reassertion of the importance of Marxism in China, since the DPRK definitely wants to get along with the PRC even if they obviously don’t want to have fealty to anyone.
I think the DPRK is in an interesting place since it’s still very much embroiled in the process of revolution while still having to develop alongside it.
The USFK still threaten the country each year with rehearsed invasions, much of North Korea is not suitable for agriculture and it has been under extremely cruel international sanctions (which are equivalent to economic warfare) by the global economy (including what should have been historic allies in China and now the RF). Against all odds the WPK still exists and has military and political control over the North.
There’s still something valuable to learn from the DPRK even if it isn’t Marxist or is a derivative of marxism-leninism. It doesnt really matter if it is “good Marxism” if you dont also mention the unique material conditions of the DPRK.
In any case, this isnt really a conversation unique to the DPRK but the theoretical efficacy of the term Actually Existing Socialism itself and how MLs should use the term.
People love gesture at things like “unique material conditions” but if you explicitly reject the idea of ending class, you aren’t socialist and it’s not even a particularly interesting conversation. If the DPRK is “AES,” then AES is nothing but a frivolous, question-begging rhetorical smokescreen.