p Social groups are often divided into two categories— primary and secondary. Primary groups, says Green, are small and personal, while secondary groups are large and impersonal. A group is primary if it has established relations of direct sympathy. Cooley asserts that the primary group is of enormous social importance in the process of formation of human ideals. Normative and social-psychological (moral) integration operates more vigorously in primary groups, mechanical (division of labour) integration in secondary groups.

p According to this idea, workers at an industrial enterprise are integrated on the basis of the division of labour into the secondary group. In this group, Western sociologists say, integration is formal because social contacts are weak. Inasmuch as modern society largely consists of such impersonal social relations, it becomes weak. People must feel that they belong to somebody, that somebody is concerned about them and that they are not alone. The primary group 128 gives a feeling of confidence and security. In a factory the primary group may consist of small groups of workers engaged in a common operation or getting together during the lunch hour.

p Some Western sociologists therefore recommend organisation of homogeneous groups. Thus, they say, in Sweden, where the national composition is homogeneous, there are 14.8 divorces per 100 marriages, whereas in the U.S.A., where national and religious differences are quite ap preciable, there are 23.1 divorces per 100 marriages. The American sociologist P. Bugjell asserts that group homogeneity contributes to the community of interests and goals, while heterogeneity makes for a conflict of interests.

p The primary group may be the family, a group of children, etc., i.e., a unit where the “individual feels he is himself”. According to R. Paris, it is the basic form of social interaction, while A. Hollingshead regards the primary army group, the clique and the unformed group of a minimum twenty persons also as primary groups. Merrill includes in this category also gangs whose activities are often of an antisocial nature [see 52; 77-78]. The primary group includes only persons whose interaction is intimate and is often based on family relationship.

p The members of the secondary group regard one another not as ends, but as means to an end. Green writes that “secondary groups are usually dispersed in space and so large that the membership cannot maintain close contact" [16; 46]. These aggregates of individuals may be associations, leagues, classes, parties, races, crowds, etc.

p This approach to the definition of a social group has frequently led researchers to insignificant conclusions. Thus the American book Modern Sociological Theory reports the following results of an investigation of groups conducted by the American sociologist L. Festinger. “It was found, in this case, that although proximity of residence within the project and such factors as the arrangements of sidewalks, mailboxes, and stairways were important in determining the persons with whom one made friends, the attractiveness of whatever groups were formed depended on how well these groups met the needs of their participants. In another instance, basing his report on research among participants in the National Training Laboratory for Group 129 Development at Bethel, Maine, French found that friendship choices were made ’mostly on the basis of similarity of occupation, personality characteristics, and the extent of actual and expected reciprocation of the choice’. He noted also that such choices were being made shortly after the entire population assembled" [21; 324].

p The level of research conducted by small-group theorists is evident from the results of surveys carried out by the American sociologist T. M. Mills. Modern Sociological Theory has the following to say about it: “T. M. Mills in his study of power relationships in three-person laboratory discussion groups, found that when what he called the strong members of a trio formed a mutually supportive pair, the third person was firmly excluded and a stable social structure occurred; but when the strong members were in conflict, no stable structure developed and they competed for the favour of the third member" [21; 327].

p In investigating the social group sociology requires an analysis of each socio-economic formation within which the given social group exists and develops. One may speak of social groups of feudal or slave-owning or socialist society, but the social laws traced in one society cannot be applied to all other societies. Within each socio-economic formation the multifarious activities of individuals, seemingly subject to no systematisation, are explained by Marxist sociologists by the role people play in the system of production relations, the conditions of production and, consequently, the conditions of life, the interests determined by these conditions, in a word, by the activities of the classes whose struggle determines social development.

p Variable functions (according to which individuals belong to one group or another) are primarily the functions of individuals in a historically determined system of social production, their relation to the means of production, their role in the social organisation of labour and, consequently, the way they obtain their share of the social wealth, the size of this share, and certain other derived characteristics.

p All social groups possess certain common features, the most important of which are:

p a) the social group exists within a single historical system of social relations as one of the elements performing strictly 130 definde functions. The group cannot exist outside the single social organism;

p b) the social group exists objectively, independent of the will of the individuals of which it consists. Each individual naturally has a consciousness and a will and has the right to act as he pleases, but if his acts do not meet the objective social requirements of the group, he will be excluded from it by force of circumstances. The group does not cease to exist when one or several of its members are replaced by others;

p c) the members of the social group may associate with one another or be unacquainted, or be on unfriendly or even hostile terms. This is unimportant. In their social functions the group members act alike. The group whose social qualities are determined by the material conditions of its existence in turn determines the social behaviour of its members;

p d) the social group is a single whole in relation to other groups. In itself the group is no less a reality than each of its individuals;

e) each social group has specific social-psychological traits, an ideology which most fully reflects its group interests.