North Korea is not a socialist nor communist country; let me dwell into this further. North Korea follows an ideology called Juche which there is little documentation on it other than "On the idea of juche" by Kim Jong-il. While this book may not be one of the most fun reads it essential to understanding the North Korean mindset. Juche can be described as an ideology of survival, where the country relies on its songun policy (translating to military first).

To further go into this and to give some historical context, the Korean peninsula from mid 1910 was under Japaneese rule which was an imperialist state. Since the taking of the peninsula the fascist government has tried to promote that the Korean's were part of the Japaneese race and that Korean was a dialect, but here is the important bit; they recognized the korean culture and really incentivized it while trying to put a Japaneese spin to it. Since 1945 split of Korean Peninsula, North Korea may be seen as a remnant of the old Fascist Japaneese Empire; as the North Korean regime really pushes the cultural and national aspect of Korea, which may be easily demonstrated by classical Korean art being produced there and women wearing traditional clothing.

[Source: Wikipedia Commons]

Sorry if I may have been incoherent in this comment as I was tired. My entire goal of this comment is to shed some light on the regime, which I don't even support. Any further questions and counter arguements I will be looking forward to answering :)