The history of the creation of the first Soviet universal electronic computers is an excellent example of the ability and readiness of the Academy of Sciences to be a leader in the creation and development of new areas of science and technology. All work, starting with the design of computers and ending with the stage of creating computers and software, was carried out at the institutes of the Academy of Sciences. On December 4, 1948, I.S. Brook and B.I. Rameev received a copyright certificate for the invention of an automatic digital machine. It was the first official document indicating the beginning of work on the creation of computers in the USSR. The first Soviet computer, the M-1, was created at the Power Energy Institute under the leadership of Corresponding Member I.S. Brook. At the Institute of Precise Mechanics and Computer Engineering, under the guidance of Academician S.A. Lebedev, the most successful series of Soviet computers, BESM, was produced. The first copies of all new models of computers before being launched into a series were subjected to comprehensive tests at the Institute of Applied Mathematics, whose director was Academician M.V. Keldysh. Academician S.L. Sobolev was the ancestor of the Russian school of programming. The article contains little-known information about the first steps of computer science in Russia. Some facts about the history of those years were hidden in the archives for a long time and are now published for the first time.