I'd think at that point, you could just say "repressive" then instead of unnecessarily all-encompassing words like "totalitarian", but even that is getting lost in being too vague. A state that represses the capitalist class is fundamentally not the same as a state that represses working class organization, for example. Also, you mentioned "North Korea", you may be confused about the history there due to endless western vilifying. The DPRK, aka: "North Korea" is not repressive toward regular people. It is a bulwark of attempted liberation and reunification from colonialism and imperialism, and it happens to be communist in ideology, which makes sense because communism and liberation typically go hand in hand. It is "South Korea", the part of Korea still occupied by the US to this day, that has a history of being brutally repressive and being an extension of US imperialism there.

To reiterate, the problem is not that something is a state, inherently (this is where I would differ with some who call themselves anarchists). The problem is in whose organized interests are behind the state. And although it's true that communists see an endpoint where the state is no longer necessary, there is still the question of how you actually get there. This is a defining point in the conversation, the question of transition, and where the concept of a socialist working class state comes from. And when we look at the historical gains in liberation, quality of life, and developing toward communism, nothing comes close to socialist state projects. Naturally, this is terrifying to the capitalists and so they would have you believing that these states are always incredibly scary places running on fear and desperation.

It is incredibly important, if you are sympathetic to communism, to be able to side with socialist state projects overall, even if you acknowledge that they don't always do right all of the time (no entity ever does and holding them to standards of perfection is a common tactic from the capitalists). If you don't side with them, you are effectively, whether you realize it or not, siding with the capitalists and imperialists of the world; with the narrative that is arguing better is not really possible, that gains can only be made on a small level by small groups "choosing" to be free. It is critical to understand this, or else "anarchism" becomes little more than a fear of authority, and you lose sight of who represents the best chance of liberating the people of the world. You don't have to personally love vast bureaucratic systems, in other words, to understand that the DPRK is the main thing that kept Korea from being a neoliberal puppet state across the board. Or to understand that China is currently facing down US imperial hegemony and is capable of standing up to it, without even pulling a trigger, while pushing for a multipolar world instead of another form of hegemony. That's a powerful force toward liberation. It's not the whole thing of it, it's not all said and done, but we can't lose sight of how pivotal this kind of organized force is in the broader context of the worldwide struggle for liberation.

we know