[nine_k]

> Without Glasnost the Soviet Union would probably still be around.

Not at all. The cause of USSR's demise was its failing economy. There was literally not enough food, due to very poor agricultural practices and very inefficient industry. Per Yegor Gaidar (who later became Russia's Prime Minister) there was barely enough food to feed the population of Moscow during the winter of 1985-85. This is what made the Soviet leadership of the time suggest some changes, before hunger really struck the country.

Actually, there were a few more or less efficient industries in the USSR: it produced quite nice automatic weapons, military aircraft and pretty reliable spacecraft. These things required efficiency (at least, in a form of a well-working end result) due to high visibility and apparent military importance. The regime could not afford to be weak on the military side, or look like a failure in space. It could ration butter, milk, sausage, etc to the population because it was not such a big deal, apparently.

[crdoconnor]

>Not at all. The cause of USSR's demise was its failing economy. There was literally not enough food

That basically describes North Korea in 1993. Except North Korea didn't have glasnost.

[nine_k]

North Korea is indirectly fed by all its neighbors, because its demise will mean a huge influx of refugees, very poor and largely not adapted to life in a non-North-Korean society. It will also mean that South Korea would have to absorb and restore North Korean territories; even mighty West Germany had visible difficulties absorbing East Germany, which was pretty prosperous by the Soviet bloc measures.

I don't think the US or Europe would feed starving USSR to prevent it from collapsing.

Also, North Korea is pretty compact. Keeping a country the size of USSR in an iron fist would be somewhat harder (though this has been done in 1930-50s), and attempts to cut certain regions away from an ailing empire would probably be much more successful.

[jacobush]

Not feed it? With nukes, you never know.

[ptaipale]

China feeds North Korea. I think the primary purpose of DPRK's existence is internal politics of its large neighbour and supporter. DPRK is there because China keeps it up and running as an isolated laboratory of stalinist communism, to remind left-wing traditionalists inside Chinese Communist Party about what their version of communism produces for the people.