Ivan Benediktov

Born Mar. 23 (Apr. 5), 1902, in Novaia Vichuga, Ivanovo Oblast. Soviet statesman. Member of the CPSU since 1930.

Benediktov was the son of an office employee. He graduated from the Timiriazev Agricultural Academy in 1927. At the end of 1931 he became deputy director, then director, of the trust of vegetable-growing sovkhozes in Moscow Oblast. In 1937 he became people’s commissar of sovkhozes in the RSFSR, then deputy chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR. He also served as the first deputy people’s commissar of agriculture of the USSR (1938 and 1943–46), people’s commissar of agriculture of the USSR (1938–43 and 1946–47), and minister of agriculture of the USSR (1947–55). From 1955 to 1957 he was the minister of sovkhozes of the USSR and deputy minister of the State Economic Commission of the USSR. From 1957 to 1959 he was minister of agriculture of the RSFSR and deputy chairman of the Gosplan (State Planning Commission) of the RSFSR. He has been the ambassador of the USSR to India (1953 and 1959–67) and Yugoslavia (from March 1967 to 1971). At the Eighteenth through Twenty-third congresses of the CPSU he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He was also a deputy to the second, fourth, and fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Benediktov has been awarded four Orders of Lenin and two other orders, as well as medals.