North Korea: State of Paranoia

Both Albania and Romania were reclusive regimes that deviated from standard Soviet Marxism–Leninism. Neither had engaged in any significant form of reform. Both had strong personality cults; had experienced prolonged periods of industrial, agricultural and financial decline; and had comparatively low levels of engagement with the West. Albania was also a country that pursued a form of Military First policy, with large amounts of expenditure directed to the army, which was broad-based and appeared to be in a permanent state of war readiness. Albania and Romania maintained strong police states and monitoring of their citizens’ activities. Romania suffered a severe debt crisis engendered by extensive borrowing from the West. Ceauşescu was overthrown and executed in December 1989. The Albanian government fell in 1990.

German reunification is often cited as the potential blueprint for the reunification of Korea.

The 1972 Communiqué and the exchanges between North and South, though they raised expectations among many South Koreans that reunification might be imminent, only revealed the two starkly different societies that had emerged since 1953.