Common Belief And The Change Of Public Land System In Soviet Union In The First Half Of20th Century (1917-1937)

After the victory of the October revolution, which happened at the beginning of thetwentieth century, Russia established the first socialist country--the Soviet Union in theworld.This world-shaking historic event turned over a new page for the world history.Then the Soviet Union starts the transformation to the planned economic system, and tothe public ownership of land in the agriculture area. The establishment of the publicownership of land by the Soviet Union played an important role in consolidating the newregime of the country, and made an outstanding contribution to the rapid development ofindustry and the appearance of the super power, and it is also the important inducementto the final collapse of the Soviet Union.According to the new study of North, the changes of the Soviet public ownershipof land in the first half of the twentieth century was understood as a process-----perceived reality, belief, system, changed the perception of reality by this article, and itwas carried forward under the guidance of the common belief of most low-incomegroups of public ownership of land led by Soviet Union, this common belief comes fromthe culture traditions, the practical problems must be solved and the study of Marx’scontent.The ruling party’s belief determines the choice of land policy, the changedperceived realistic feedback brought by the implementation of the policy makes theruling party’s cognitive change, and the subsequent reshaping of the mental model bringsthe adjustment of the policy and beliefs. So we see that the ruling party’s policychanged----from the "land law" to the wartime communist policy, and then to the neweconomic policy and finally a whole collectivization, while the corresponding rulers’belief adjusts from "direct transition” to “indirect transition" and " and finally to the“direct transition again. However, But the ruling party has never been shaken strongpersistence to the belief of the public ownership of land. Low income people’s beliefmainly comes from the traditional culture, the cognition to the complicated social life,and their passive learning to the mobilization of political ideology. People’s choice of land system has factors both economic motives and ideology, both the rational factorsand non rational factors, which influence not only the ruling party’s policy performance,but also the actual transition of the land system.The consistency of the public ownership of land between ruling party’s belief andpeople’s belief consist its “common belief” of public ownership of land, which spurs thesmooth transition to public ownership of Soviet’s land system in the first half of thetwentieth Century. During the process, from belief to institution, ideological mobilizationplays a very great part, while the dual constraints on the leader and the participantsgiven by cultural tradition in the process of land system’s transition makes the actualland system transition present the character, dependence of pathThrough empirical research on the process and results of the Soviet Party rulingmandatory implementation of the transition of land system, this paper draws thefollowing conclusions:Firstly, the change of Soviet public ownership of land system in the first half of thetwentieth century which was promoted by the “common belief” of most low-incomegroups of public ownership of land is a mandatory system change led by the Sovietauthorities.Secondly, in the process of the transition of land system, the belief of the rulers andthe populace shaped the path of the institutional transition together.Thirdly, the divergence of belief formed by opposite ideology is a significant causeof the society that divided into the low-income groups led by the working class and thebourgeoisie, the rich low income groups, in Russia at the very beginning of twentiethCentury, and it is also the important reason encountering resistance in promoting theprocess of institutional change.Fourthly, the decision-making structure dominated by belief and ideological rigidityrestrict the perceived failure’s correction, led to the abandonment of the new economicpolicy in the process of the ruling party’s forcibly promoting the public ownership of land.As well as the suppression to the hostile powers. Fifthly, the use of violence in the process of individual belief to a common faith hasplayed an important role. In the presence of belief differences, in order to promote thepublic belief the ruling party often suppress hostile forces through violence way.Sixthly, the ideological influence on the transition of land system embodied in: onthe one hand, the belief of the Soviet Union Communist Party of Marx mainly comesfrom Marx’s theory of scientific ideology, which determines the choice of the rulingparty’s land policy; on the other hand, the party’s ideological mobilization tolow-income groups is an important source of public belief, which determines the choiceof the people of the land system, this is the important reason for the proletariat toobtain the victory by violent revolution during the competition with the bourgeoisie, andit is also the important reason why the public ownership of land system changessmoothly.Sevenly, the cultural tradition has double restriction on the institutional change’sdominators and participants: on the one hand is there is the use of traditional culture inthe dominators’ land policy; on the other hand is there are cultural constraints forparticipants to select the land system, which directly affect the implementation of thepolicy’s performance. The constraints of cultural tradition make the actual transition ofthe land system present the character, the dependence of path.