More generally, in keeping with Polya's dictum that "if there's a problem you can't figure out, there's a simpler problem you can't figure out", solvable groups can often be used to reduce a conjecture about a complicated group, into a conjecture about a series of groups with simple structure - cyclic groups of prime order.
Let E be the trivial subgroup; then a normal series of a group G is a finite sequence of subgroups, E = A1, A2, ..., Ai, ..., An-1, An = G, where each Ai is a normal subgroup of Ai+1. There is no requirement that Ai be a normal subgroup of G (a series with this additional property is called an invariant series); nor is there any requirement that Ai be maximal in Ai+1.
A series with the additional property that Ai ≠ Ai+1 for all i is called a normal series without repetition; equivalently, each Ai is a proper normal subgroup of Ai+1.
If we require that each Ai be a maximal, proper, normal subgroup of Ai+1, it then follows that the factor group Ai+1 / Ai will be simple in each case. This gives the following definition: a composition series of a group is a normal series, without repetition, where the factors Ai+1 / Ai are all simple.
There are no additional subgroups which can be "inserted" into a composition series; and it can be seen that, if a composition series exists for a group G, then any normal series of G can be refined to a composition series, informally, by inserting subgroups into the series up to maximality. Every finite group has a composition series; but not every infinite group has one (for example, the additive group of integers (Z, +) has no composition series).
In general, a group will have multiple, different composition series. For example, the cyclic group C12 has {E, C2, C6, C12}, {E, C2, C4, C12}, and {E, C3, C6, C12} as different composition series. However, the result of the Jordan-Hölder Theorem is that any two composition series of a group are equivalent, in the sense that the sequence of factor groups in each series are the same, up to rearrangement of their order in the sequence Ai+1 / Ai. In the above example, the factor groups are isomorphic to {C2, C3, C2}, {C2, C2, C3}, and {C3, C2, C2}, respectively.
Finally - a group is called solvable if it has a normal series whose factor groups are all abelian.
For finite groups, it is equivalent (and useful) to require that a solvable group have a composition series whose factors are all cyclic of prime order (as every simple, abelian group must be cyclic of prime order). The Jordan-Hölder theorem guarantees that if one composition series has this property, then all composition series will have this property as well. For the Galois group of a polynomial, these cyclic groups correspond to nth roots (radicals) over some field.
Certainly, any abelian group will be solvable - the quotient A/B will always be abelian if both A and B are abelian. The situation is not always so clear in the case of non-abelian groups.
A small example of a solvable, non-abelian group is the symmetric group S3. In fact, as the smallest simple non-abelian group is A5, (the alternating group of degree 5) it follows that every group with order less than 60 is solvable.
The group S5 however is not solvable - it has a composition series {E, A5, S5}; giving factor groups isomorphic to A5 and C2; and A5 is not abelian. Generalizing this argument, coupled with the fact that An is a normal, maximal, non-abelian simple subgroup of Sn for n > 4, we see that Sn is not solvable for n > 4, a key step in the proof that for every n > 4 there are polynomials of degree n which are not solvable by radicals.
The property of solvability is rather 'inheritable'; since
As a strengthening of solvability, a group G is called supersolvable if it it has an invariant normal series whose factors are all cyclic; in other words, if it is solvable with each Ai also being a normal subgroup of G, and each Ai+1/Ai is not just abelian, but also cyclic (possibly of infinite order). Since a normal series has finite length by definition, there are uncountable abelian groups which are not supersolvable; but if we restrict ourselves to finite groups, we can consider the following arrangement of classes of groups:
cyclic < abelian < nilpotent < supersolvable < solvable < finite group