North Korea is not an orthodox Communist regime.
The ruling ideology is Juche - self-reliance. Its basically Korean nationalism mixed up with dynastic fascism.
Nowhere are the traditional orthodox tenets of Marxism-Leninism upheld.
It would be too embarrassing in a country that worships the sole ruler as an absolute demi-god. Communist countries nominally have collective leaderships subordinated to the Party.
In North Korea the Party and every facet of national revolves around the Sun of the Dear Leader whose final word is absolute law.
They have never really been "self-reliant" with massive subsidies from the Soviets and some moderate support from China afterwards.
or as Wiki says
Songun did not appear as an official government policy until after Kim Il-sung's death in 1994, however. In 1995, "military first" policies were introduced as "a revolutionary idea of attaching great importance to the army" and as "a politics emphasizing the perfect unity and the single-hearted unity of the party, army and the people, and the role of the army as the vanguards"[3][dubious – discuss] in the wake of Kim Jong-il's first military unit visit for that year. This was a slight shift from the government's previous guiding policy, Kim Il-sung's juche, or self-reliance policy.[4]