They are workers, nothing more to it.
Why do you have to defend the fascists in this specific case, then?
Do some research for 5 seconds. The country has been at war for decades for no fault of their own. I don't laugh when the US is sending billions of dollars of military equipment when I see dozens of new homeless people every day. It's just not funny. Military expenses are irrelevant, anyway. Feeding people could be done with or without spending on military. The difference is that North Korea is under sactions when they have like 18% arable land.
Oh ok, it's only okay to be homophobic if you're laughing at people who suck the wrong person's dick.
You mean to tell me that hearing that exact phrase during my entire life in a homophobic context has all of a sudden changed meanings? I don't buy your bullshit.
If hating tankies means you have to support fascist dictatorships, then I guess I'll never hate tankies.
To join up with a country that supported this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chun_Doo-hwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_massacres
The South Korea that was allied with the US, who makes agreements like this to achieve their goals? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-us-allowed-korean-massacre-in-1950/
The country has never starved itself for fun. North Korea has <20% arable land and relies on other countries to provide that supply. With sanctions it is very hard to import high quality food to provide for people. The fact that the government offers free housing, healthcare, and education tells me they would do everything in their power to feed its population if they were able to trade with more countries.
This is literally it. North Korea is just a poor country that offers its citizens free healthcare and education. If a poor country in Africa became "communist," you can bet these same people would be laughing at them when kids have to pick up guns to defend themselves from an American invasion. "Ha ha look at those inferior kids thinking they deserve to fight back. Kill them! I wish they died quicker and were sanctioned harder."
Where's the monarchy?
You're the type of idiot that would be living in Africa during the 1910s holding arguments about whether Germany or the US is better, while refusing to let anyone speak up about them both being awful.
Russia and the US are trying to do the exact same thing to Eastern Europe right now. Just because the US claims "this is for democracy" doesn't make it better. Also, the US recognizes Taiwan as an island beloning to China, they just hold informal agreements for the sake of military and tech, like chips or manufacturing.
It rarely happens because fascists laugh at them before ordering their execution, and they get purged by any serious Communist party. Loud as they are, we all know what happens to them in the end.
There's no excuse for it, really. They always get involved with anti-(US)imperialism, and end up having high ranking members of their parties shake hands with reactionaries. You can support lifting sanctions on Iran, Syria, etc. without actually supporting Bashar al-Assad or Holocaust-deniers. They went to far in pursuit of geopolitcs rather than recognizing that one's domestic bourgeosie is the major threat.
Imagine if Trump won 2024 and backed out of NATO. Who cares if Trump (a hardline anti-labor conservative) gets us out of wars if he thinks Joe Biden is a Communist. Of course, anyone to the left of Nick Fuentes would be sent to jail for "anti-patriotic actions" or some shit.
The same excuse of "the enemy of my enemy..." was used when the USSR told the Chinese Communists to just fully join with the Kuomintang after defeating Japan (which were backed by Americans that got rich off the Opium Wars and massacred leftists); or when China under Mao called the USSR social-imperialist and backed the Pol Pot regime.
Rules-based international system? Did you copy and paste from a right-wing think tank or something? I always thought that phrase was a joke for rich Americans to say when they carpet bomb a wedding and the military gets away with it. You can sleep at night peacefully, I'm sure, since China and Russia would need at least a decade or two to finish the job.
But if your "rules based system" collapses because Chinese bots are posting memes in communities with a few thousand followers, then it deserves to happen.
You need to research some info on LaRouche and Dugin. They sound like complete jokes and everyone downplays their influence, but it's very real. That's where this comes from.
Also, Stalin was supported at that time in the US because of major wins in labor disputes and the fact that we were allied during WWII. The USSR was defeating Germany under Stalin, and we (the US) decided to finish off the losing team (luckily Germany). He was considered a hero, and a genuine revolutionary Communist for his work, and the fight against Nazism is how he went down in history. Ironically, wrt. your comment, it was the de-Stalinizing USSR under Khrushchev that were the "tankies", it had nothing to do with Stalin at all.
Like many other impoverished, war-torn, or underdeveloped countries, socialism failed to be fully achieved in the USSR and ended up getting stuck. We could recognize the good and move on to build something better.
Why are you claiming that Putin hates gays like it's a bad thing, and then making fun of gay people? I don't suck dick, and I definitely wouldn't make the offer if I was trying to "own" a homophobe..
I mean, there is a long documented list of crimes that make China look like a Muslim paradise compared to anything in Europe or North America, and Ukraine has every problem that Russia does. Again, why are we all trying to compare sides? Of course, with Russian suppression, it will soon be just as repressive as Ukraine, and China has a bunch of "war on terror" laws just like the US, so there's nothing to be proud of there.
We're caught in the middle of a third world war, with many similarities to the first one: namely, inter-imperialist/inter-capitalist. Saying something bad about "your team" (the one you're supposed to praise as supreme and glorious with a clear display of patriotism) is seen as traitor behavior worthy of prison. The US and UK would dehumanize Germans back during WWI, and send labor activists to jail over claims of German interference. You're right to avoid the trap of dehumanizing "the other" for the sake of trying to pick the lesser of two evils. Never pick sides in an inter-imperialist conflict. At best you get an FDR to avert revolution, at worst you get a bunch of Mussolinis walking around.
It's not an "ideology" either. It's a mode of production, which includes feudalism, slave society, and capitalism. The argument has been about how we move from a capitalist society to a class-less/state-less society.