Background
POTEKHIN, Ivan was born on October 1, 1903 in village Krivosheino, now Krasnoyarsk Kray. Son of a peasant.
POTEKHIN, Ivan was born on October 1, 1903 in village Krivosheino, now Krasnoyarsk Kray. Son of a peasant.
1930-1939 graduate and postgraduate course at Leningrad Oriental Institute.
Until 1930 political educational work and Party work in Siberia. During World War 2 in Red Army. From 1946 senior associate, 1949-1959 deputy director, Institute of Ethnography, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Academy of Sciences.
1949-1957 also deputy chief ed, journal “Sovetskaya etnografiya”. 1959-1964, director, African Institute, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Academy of Sciences. 1954 and 1960 attended International Congresses of Orientalists in Cambridge and Moscow.
1956 and 1960 attended International Congresses of Ethnographers and Anthropologists in Philadelphia and Paris. 1960 attended International Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in Conakry. 1962 attended 1st International Congress of Africanists in Accra.
From 1959 chairman, Board, Soviet Association for Friendship with the Peoples of Africa. From 1962 chairman. Commission for Africa, Soviet Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee. From 1957 member, International Social of Africanists.
From 1962 member and Bureau member, Permanent Council, International Congress of Africanists. Studied ethnography and economics of African peoples. Concentrated on national-liberation movements in Africa and development of African countries along “non-capitalist lines”.
All religious orders impose irrational rules of good and bad behaviour.
Individuals have rights to express freedom if it safeguarde the interests of a collective.
Communist Party member from 1922.