im presuming that you're presenting yourself i good faith and you sound like me not long ago; i want to share something that's been helpful in dispelling the inception like nature of sources from the western that likely gave you this conclusion:

For heaven’s sake, his own guards were scared of him. In fact, he died because he instilled so much fear into them. Personally, I’m more of a collectivist who doesn’t believe in authoritarianism.

(i know that you're getting this from a western source because you used the word authoritarian).

the freedom of information act, passed in the 1960s, forces the us government to release files -- like they released the epstein files -- where the cia, fbi, state dept, etc. admit in writing that they make shit up.

you have to wait at least 25 years after the event, but you can already read some files -- just like people are reading the epstein files rn -- of shit they made up about north korea being “authoritarian.” (you can even see how they chose that word). but the key part is that they admit to lying to us about north korea’s authoritarianism.

so if your source calls north korea authoritarian, know the us government invented that in the 1950s, was forced by law to admit the lie to the public in the 1970s and that any source still pushing this narrative can’t be trusted.

you're never going to be a leftist if you don't question your own sources.