You’ll see anarchists praising Rosa Luxemburg, who if they had actually read her writings – they would see that she was very clearly one of the “authoritarian” socialists that they rail against so much.
You see them praise the Black Panthers, who were supported financially by the DPRK and aligned themselves with the Juche ideology of Kim Il Sung.
They even praise Thomas Sankara, who purged anarchists and arrested syndicalists.
If these people had succeeded, i have no doubt in my mind that anarchists would call them “tankies,” they would call their experiments “capitalism with a red flag.” And I also have no doubt in my mind that if the October Revolution, Chinese Revolution had been crushed, they would hail Lenin and Mao as proletarian heroes.
I’m guessing you’re referring to defectors. Many people left in 90’s because of legitimately bad conditions thanks to sanctions and the fall of the USSR. When they go into South Korea they are put into camps where they check if the defectors are spies and then try to brainwash them against communism and against their former leaders. Then once they are free they are often paid large amounts of money to tell (and exaggerate) their story of escape. The more crazy and horrible the story the more they get paid. A decent amount of people want to go back, but the SK government won’t let them. For more information watch ‘Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seol’ which someone already linked.