Alexander Ignatyevich Tarasov-Rodionov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Игна́тьевич Тара́сов-Родио́нов; October 7, 1885 – September 3, 1938) was a Russian/Soviet writer and revolutionary, best known for his novel Chocolate which at the time of publication was acclaimed as a tale of heroic self-sacrifice but has since been criticized as a justification for the Red Terror.

"[5] It tells the story of Zudin, a chairman of the local Cheka, who is accidentally implicated in and finally executed for a bribery scandal involving, among other things, some chocolate that his wife accepted as a gift from his secretary.

It was reprinted in the USSR five times (1925, 1927, 1928, 1930, 1990), and translated into several languages, including Hungarian, where it was read by young revolutionaries such as Imre Lakatos.

A review, published in the Petrograd "Red Student", was enthusiastic, saying that the death by execution of Zudin, though an unfortunate turn of events since he was innocent, revealed a real pattern: Communists and specifically the Chekists are first and foremost merciless towards themselves.

The main character, is purportedly based on the recollections of Felix Dzerzhinsky, as cited in the memoir of V. V. Ovsienko, about the real person D. Y. Chudin, a member of the board of the Petrograd Cheka, shot on August 23, 1919.