The North Korean totalitarian system is almost 70 years old and can’t continue to work in the same way it did in the past, Charles Armstrong, a well-known scholar on Korean history, told NK News.

Armstrong traces the system’s origins to Stalinism and the legacy of Japanese colonial rule.

“Stalin’s Soviet Union was ultimately the model for both internal security in North Korea and control of information to the outside…” Armstrong said. Also, the North Korean elite, having lived through the Japanese colonial period, understood that Japanese techniques of detention and surveillance were very effective in maintaining political