ABSTRACT
Sociology should study the laws pertaining both to specific formation, that is, specific stages of social development, and to specific spheres of life, that is, economics and politics. Distinct from but related to the alternative positions about the relationship between historical materialism and sociology were a series of views about the relationship between sociology and the social sciences. In general, the Soviet conception of sociology was inversely related to its view on bourgeois sociology. Marxist sociology was considered to be in a state of ideological war with bourgeois sociology. The bourgeoisie, as the ruling class, needs sociology to help solve numerous problems. Although bourgeois sociology was not guided by a single, all-embracing theory, it was recognized nonetheless that it contained more limited sociological theories. In capitalist countries sociology is a branch of knowledge developed a network of institutions in which a large number of concrete researches is conducted.
