https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chollima_Movement
Citation #2 points to a book that collates many sources. Here's what it has to say:
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Wikipedia is just a collection of opinions laundered by loosely-relevant citations appearing next to them (or in this case, completely irrelevant ones).
I don't know about straight up lying, but at any point in which the historical record was slightly murky - most notably, in the early chapters, when there is some confusion as to whether Kim Sung Il or Stalin is calling the shots - Lankov consistently reaches for conclusions that belittle the Koreans and question their capacity for anything but cruelty.
The pitch I got was "He's a former Soviet, so he's not coming at Korea with a Western bias".
But Ayn Rand was also a former Soviet.