The Soviet Period

Chocolate, however, remained a symbol of bourgeois decadence, providing fodder for Alexander Tarasov-Rodionov’s classic early Soviet novel Chocolate (1922), which chronicles the downfall of a functionary through the twin temptations of chocolate and lust. But with Stalin’s mid-1930s campaign to make life “better” and “more cheerful,” chocolate was promoted, along with champagne, as proof that the Soviet Union could provide its proletariat with luxury goods. Nine chocolate factories were built under the Five-Year Plans, and vast amounts of cacao beans were imported for domestic production.