MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) - Alexei Pushkov, the head of the State Duma committee on international affairs, believes today's North Korea has an even worse dictatorship than the one that existed in the USSR under Stalin.
"I don't want to hurt our North Korean neighbors, but that society is based on totally different principles," he told a press conference at the Interfax central office.
Pushkov said that North Korea, "where virtually everything is distributed, where the main food is rice and kimchi, where people who fail to fulfill some labor assignment are first sent to work in agriculture and then to a labor camp, indeed has complete dictatorship."
"As compared to North Korea, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a full-fledged democracy," Pushkov said.
Pushkov said he is convinced that "sanctions will not work in this society."
"People will not feel sanctions because they are under sanctions continually," he said.