Tracing the Origins of the First Soviet Computers, Beyond Legends

The first Soviet digital computers, the M-1 and the MESM, were built in 1951, a few years after their western counterparts. Anecdotal storytelling narrates that Russian scientists learned of electronic computers from Western radio broadcasts and popular magazines that arrived in the Soviet Union. The article examines the plausibility of the legends and tries to reconstruct the origins of the first Soviet computers and the influence of Western projects on more solid bases of historical research.