Free markets under communism

Apparently, North Korea, of all regimes, is the latest to undergo what must be a painful adjustment for the fanatics that run the place:

Bowing to reality, the North Korean government has lifted all restrictions on private markets -- a last-resort option for a leadership desperate to prevent its people from starving.

Earlier, of course, its protector, China, had long since bowed to the gods of the market place (not to sound triumphalist or anything), and, in another of history's ironies, so had Vietnam