alt Hacker News> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists.
Well - it depends on how one wants to call the result of the war.
I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a stalemate/truce, with China guaranteeing North Korea to not lose, but not necessarily win either. That does not mean North Korea won, but I don't think one can necessarily say that they lost the war either.
I am fully aware of how the propaganda in North Korea works, but some articles are also heavily biased. The biggest danger to North Korea actually comes from the success model in South Korea, as well as the internet. The internet kind of nerfed Scientology (see what Ron Miscavige said and described how Scientology changed over the years, so if one of the big guys can quit, the whole business model they established decades ago, is dead and decaying). Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet. You can not permanently cut off million of people, with the assumption they won't be able to understand how strategic lies work. It also does not work in Russia either, though Russia is of course nowhere near as isolated as North Korea right now.
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> I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a stalemate/truce
Well yeah, basically everyone agrees on that. Everyone who's not insane anyway.
Like, North Korea invaded and made it really far, UN (mostly US) forces pushed them way the hell back, then China helped NK push that offensive back, and they ended up settling real close to the original dividing line. Pretty obvious draw as far as wars go I think.
> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists.
According to the North Korean govt, the Korean war was started by the South who wanted to invade North (it was not, based on extensive studies). Therefore in their view (or at least from their propaganda), the communists "won" by successfully defending their part of the peninsula.
None of what you are saying holds water. Scientology’s old business model became less effective, but the cult segued into a real-estate empire and still has several mega-wealthy members (so-called “whales”) it can milk for donations.
And North Korea could see greater internet uptake but still remain a stable dictatorship, precisely on the model of Russia where, even if the population “sees through the lies”, that doesn’t challenge the regime itself; people who dislike the regime largely simply accept it as a fact of life, and might even disapprove of those people who make the effort to challenge it.
> Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet.
North Koreans do not have any Internet, save for through computers at a few government-controlled and strictly monitored libraries, as well as through illegal imported Chinese smartphones if they live near the border.