Appointed the first People's Commissar of Education in 1917, Lunacharsky played an important role in the early history of Soviet film, overseeing the implementation of censorship systems and regulating the industry.  He emphasized that films must be entertaining in order for their role as propaganda to be effective.  In a speech to film workers in January of 1928, he said "The cinema public often wants something that it finds especially interesting and if you do not produce a sensation to provide this interest it will not want to eat the dish you offer and will push it away or, if it does eat it, it will only do it very unwillingly...Many of our people do not understand that our film production must whet the public appetite, that, if the public is not interested in a picture that we produce, it will become boring agitation and we shall become boring agitators."