North Korean leader Kim Jong Un acknowledged that the communist regime failed to produce on nearly every front of his five-year economic plan. In a gathering of the ruling Workers’ Party on Jan. 6, Kim told other cadres that the five-year “strategy was due last year but it tremendously fell short of goals on almost every sector,” according to state-run media. Photos of the event showed top aides, including sister Kim Yo Jong, had accompanied him. The Workers’ Party meeting hasn’t been held in about five years, which was when Kim first introduced the economic blueprint. The Soviet Union and China under Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, respectively, as well as other communist states, have used five-year plans in an attempt to develop their economies, although historians and other experts have said these plans have led to unprecedented famines—such as the one that occurred during China’s second five-year plan—and other …