The confusion of concepts in the analysis of social processes leads to incorrect theoretical conclusions, resulting in erroneous and sometimes harmful decisions and practical actions. This argument also applies to the evaluation of such phenomena as propaganda and information war. Information war, which is generated by contemporary political realities and scientific and technological conditions, many authors consider an analog of propaganda, which has a very long history and a different purpose. With all the seeming similarities, propaganda and information war have major differences and divergences of both substantive and functional nature. The authors believe that the present paper can initiate a scientific discourse not only of the possibility but of the necessity of propaganda in the functioning of society, allowing to find and justify the best examples of social life in all its manifestations, and, on the other hand, become an additional argument in proving the perniciousness and inferiority of information war.