When your country descends into a communist utopia and you don't have enough support to overthrow the government and the long term outlook is bleak for years, that's when things get bad.
Being in the country might be fine... right up till the Communists send out the military in a big way to "redistribute" the food that the counter revolutionary farmers are hiding.... Always happens, the NK guys are getting so desperate they are telling the soldiers to go loot the villages if they want to eat. You can fight off some looters, it's much harder to fight off your national army.