It is Juche year 101 in North Korea.  But while Juche is supposed to be a philosophy of self-reliance and independence, the reality is that North Korea has rarely been self-sufficient economically. Kim Il Sung was a master salesman, able to play off the Soviet Union with China for aid and subsidies while retaining a great deal of independence.  But once those sources dried up in the early 1990s, the North Korean economy went into a tail spin. And with a U.S. embargo imposed since 1950 and successive waves of trade sanctions, the North Korean Juche economy has barely limped