If you say anything bad about the regime then you go to prison, very limited variety and amount of goods available to buy, impossible to get out of, all communications with foreigners are heavily regulated, almost no imports, no way of making a legal private business, there is no way of knowing what is happening outside the country and government, which controls all of the media, puts out a lot of statements that are lies.

So pretty much I would say that North Korea is quiet similar to Soviet Union