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this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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Korea / 조선
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A community about anything related to Korea, such as news about the countries (DPRK and south), discussion, photos and videos, the language, etc.
See also: !juchegang@lemmygrad.ml, which is intended for memes rather than serious discussion of these topics.
The picture of this Lemmy community is magnolia (목란), the national flower of the DPRK. The background picture is a scenery of Pyongyang.
Rules:
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No imperialist apologia. The DPRK didn't start the war. US imperialist invasion was not justified. Neither are their army bases in south Korea. The sanctions were and are not justified.
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Be respectful. The imperialist media likes to describe the DPRK people as completely brainwashed, and that it'd be fine to completely destroy that country in an invasion. Don't act like the imperialist media.
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Be skeptical of your sources. Don't trust the media that has been known to report many falsehoods about Korea already. (You may still link to them if they write something interesting / worth reading, just be careful.)
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exactly... would anybody be lucky to live in russia or cuba right now? i think its a form of orientalism.
In Russia, yes. Absolutely. It is not at all comparable to Cuba, or even the DPRK. Russia is doing better economically despite sanctions than Europe is right now. Prices are far more affordable, no energy crisis, and they have a growing industry, rather than de-industrialization. And they certainly don't have shortages of fuel or goods like in Cuba. So yes, i would consider myself lucky if i lived in Russia right now. They have problems but the trajectory is positive.
The thing with sanctions is that they are becoming less and less impactful for countries that have alternatives. Cuba is in probably the worst position you can be because they are far from the Eurasian core of BRICS and an island, thus easily isolated. But countries like Russia, Iran, and even the DPRK will be less and less affected by sanctions as time goes on because of the alternative economic structures that have been building around the BRICS countries.
The more that sanctioned countries trade with one another and build alternative financial systems the less that sanctions matter.
well orientalism also includes russia so the point still stands... ”the prices are far more affordable” is a classic way of how westerners see things and not at all true for people actually living here. the average rent in eastern europe might be 500 dollars but the salaries rarely push 600... i thought u were russian or atleast eastern european and its my first time finding out youre actually a westerner so pls stop. no country in eastern europe is doing better than the west. we had well running socialist systems until the west ruined it and its quite frankly a bit dismissive and offensive.
I am from Eastern Europe and live in Germany. I have relatives in Eastern Europe and i visit there regularly. I can tell you for a fact that things are not as rosy in the West as you think.
The Russian economy is growing faster than the German economy. This is an objective, measurable fact. I can tell you from personal experience it is getting harder and harder to find a job even as a university graduate. Germany is losing tens of thousands of jobs every month. Russia has a labor shortage. Germany is deindustrializing. This is not controversial, this is a fact.
Fuel and energy prices are more affordable in Russia relative to the average income than in Germany. Maybe you don't realize how bad things have gotten in the West in recent years but it's not like the 90s or early 2000s anymore.
The housing situation is worse in Germany than it is in most of Eastern Europe. Far more people own their own home in Eastern Europe. Most people i know in Germany who i went to school with rent. Nobody my age is buying a home. Public transportation is expensive and unreliable. And i only have to walk ten minutes to see half a dozen homeless people sleeping in the train station every night.
We are a family of two and we have very little left at the end of the month after rent, bills and groceries.
I'm not saying Russia is some kind of paradise. Obviously the fall of socialism was a catastrophe that they have still not recovered from. Obviously there is a lot of poverty especially in rural areas across Eastern Europe. But the trajectory i see for Russia, like i do for the rest of Asia, is one of positive growth. The EU is stagnating and sinking into deep crisis.
I'll have to respectfully disagree. I don't see things improving for the average Russian, not even a little bit. I live in the EU as well and I know thing got particularly worse lately, but using this to excuse Russia is just doing a race to the bottom. Just beacuse the GDP is doing good and will probably increase makes Russia more powerful and healthy but not necessarily the people living in it.
40% of Russians live on the brink of poverty, struggling to afford basic necessities beyond food and clothing.
Poverty is 2.2 times higher than official statistics, 14.5% of Russians cannot afford basic consumption, and the real number living in extreme poverty is over 21 million.
82% of Russians are anxious about the economy, believing their incomes will not keep up with rising prices.
Despite record-low 2.1% unemployment, high competition makes job hunting extremely tough, with 11.4 resumes per vacancy on average. This doubled since last year.
We are also having an epic South Korea/Japan moment: "The total fertility rate in rural areas in 2025 was the lowest in 35 years."
As of now, I'd rather live in the DPRK. Despite being in worst conditions, they are doing everything they can to help the common people advance. Until Russia goes communist (which might actually happen relatively pretty soon ngl ngl 👀) I don't see them tackling these issues.
I'm not disputing that and those are very good things to point out, but i'm saying put it into historical perspective. Russians are objectively better off today than they were 25 years ago, and looking at the trajectory of the developing alternative global economic structures and their economic ties to a rising China, it is likely they will be better off in 5-10 years than they are today. Are Germans today better off than they were 25 years ago? I'm not so sure about that. Will they be better off in 5-10 years than they are today? Very probably not.
Of course that does not mean that all these various social and economic problems that are caused by capitalism in Russia will disappear. In the long term those can only be fixed by a return to socialism.
As a communist, obviously, i also gravitate more towards the DPRK's socialist economic organization than Russia's capitalism. I don't know that i would necessarily be materially better off there, and i do think living in Russia has some advantages over the DPRK in terms of access to goods and amenities that we as westerners are used to, but socially it would be nice to know that you have a comprehensive social safety net and are not being exploited by capitalist oligarchs every time you go to work. It would be nice to know that you are working for a common prosperity that everyone can enjoy.
What i am trying to say is that Russia, while deeply flawed, is clearly part of the now more dynamic and developing part of the world which is centered around Asia, while most of the EU is already in a period of decline and stagnation that i do not see stopping.
Hmmmm, just to have the same context regarding the word that you are using:
I think nobody here is doing that as far as I can tell.
Also, maybe your case is similar to NotMushroomForDebate, so my question to you is the following: Are you sure that you are viewing the DPRK correctly and up to date? Are you viewing the DPRK as a struggling country?
I'm confused, what is orientalism about this notion? I suppose you could argue it's romanticizing the conditions there, but considering it's common to view the DPRK as a hellhole due to propaganda, it seems to me the OP is just a form of pushing back on that. rainpizza also has shared more substantive snippets of people living in the DPRK at various points.