Axis of Evil Revisited

I saw this piece on "The Secret History of Kim Jong Il" in Foreign Policy recently and shuddered. A illuminating account from one of Mr. Kim's former teachers. It's easy to find Kim Jong Il bemusing. The claims that he shoots at least three or four hole-in-ones on each round of golf for instance. Stories like that are legion. But then we get glimpses of the utter, unabashed depravity of his regime. Like this from the aforementioned story:

My friend, a well-connected physician at the time, told me that he had been ordered by the Communist Party to pick out the shortest residents of Pyongyang and South Pyongan province. Against his conscience, he went out to those areas and had local party representatives distribute propaganda pamphlets. They claimed that the state had developed a drug that could raise a person’s height and was recruiting people to receive the new treatment. In just two days, thousands gathered to take the new drug.

My friend explained how he picked out the shortest among the large group. He told the crowd that the drug would best take effect when consumed regularly in an environment with clean air. The people willingly, and without the slightest suspicion, hopped aboard two ships – women in one, men in the other. Separately, they were sent away to different uninhabited islands in an attempt to end their “substandard” genes from repeating in a new generation. Left for dead, none of the people made it back home. They were forced to spend the rest of their lives separated from their families and far from civilization.

What level of systematic repression convinces the masses to allow tyrants like Mr. Kim to remain in control for decades?