Benediktov was the as deputy chief of the collective farm system in Uzbekistan. In 1930 he became a member of the Communist Party. He was appointed people's commissar of collective farms in the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in 1937 and Soviet commissar of agriculture in April 1938. In the latter post Benediktov succeeded
Robert Eikhe{{cite journal|author=Stephan Merl|title=Why did the attempt under Stalin to increase agricultural productivity prove to be such a fundamental failure?|journal=Cahiers du Monde russe|date=January–March 2016|volume=57|issue=1|pages=191–220|doi=10.4000/monderusse.8343 In 1946 Benediktov was appointed minister of agriculture. In 1952 he was again made the central committee member which he held until 1971. His ministerial tenure ended in 1953 when he was named Soviet ambassador to India which he held less than one year. In 1954 he was again appointed minister of agriculture. No official explanation was given for his removal and reinstatement, but the historian
Robert Conquest noted that when high ranking officials were transferred abroad in the 1950s, it was a sign of the power struggles that followed
Joseph Stalin's death in March 1953.{{cite book|author=Robert Conquest|title=Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R., a Study of Soviet Dynastics|year=1961|publisher=MacMillan But only six months after his reinstatement, Benediktov was accused by Khrushchev of being "engulfed in bureaucracy." Due to criticisms he was removed from the office and appointed to the same post for the RSFSR. In 1959 he was again named the Soviet ambassador to India where he served until 1967. One of the most significant events during his diplomatic service in India was about the defection of
Svetlana Alliluyeva, Josef Stalin's daughter. She was there to finalize the funeral ceremony of her common-law husband and Indian communist
Brajesh Singh by dispersing his ashes into the
river Ganges per the Inhdian traditions. After the ceremony she asked to have an official permission to stay there through the Soviet ambassador, Ivan Benediktov.{{cite journal|author=Paul M. McGarr|title=From Russia with Love: Dissidents, Defectors and the Politics of Asylum in Cold War India|journal=
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History|year=2020|volume=48 Benediktov's term ended in April 1967 shortly after the defection of Svetlana Alliluyeva, and he was appointed Soviet ambassador to Yugoslavia which he held until 1971. ==Personal life and death==