The paper examines the rising significance of propaganda after the First World War and focuses in particular on how it was perceived in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. The increasing danger posed by neighboring Nazi Germany elevated it to a conscious effort to use spiriual means to control the masses in order to help defend democratic Czechoslovakia. The paper analyzes the era's ideas on the significance of propaganda. It focuses on discussons on the relationship between propaganda and democracy, and attempts to create a ministry of propaganda in a democratic state. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou