At a 1956 session of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Brook presented a report on automation in which he set forth the major directions of computer usage in the industrial sector. Two years later, he wrote a proposal, "The Development of Theory, Principles of Construction, and Application of Special Computing and Control Machines," and submitted it to the Soviet government.
Essentially, these two documents were the first drafts of a program to automate the Soviet Union's economy with computers. For the first time in domestic practice, the question of computer application in areas other than their traditional use, such as technology, physics and mathematics, was being considered. There was also a need to resolve the serious problem of controlling technical installations and performing economic computations, such as the calculation of balances between various industrial sectors, optimized distribution of transported goods, price determination, etc.[10]
Brook's 1958 report was the first step toward the organization of a number of new scientific-research institutions and construction bureaus at the end of 1950s. In 1956, a former electric systems laboratory at the Power Engineering Institute was reorganized as the Control Machines and Systems Laboratory [in Russian: Laboratoriya Upravlayuschikh Mashin i Sistem, or LUMS]. Later in 1958, the Institute of Electronic Control Machines (in Russian: Institut Elektronnikh Upravlyaushikh Mashin, or INEUM) was established and Brook became its first Director. At the same time, the Presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences confirmed Brook's assigment to the position of scientific manager for the state project "Development of the Theory, Principles of Construction and Application of Control Computers."
At the Institute of Electronic Control Machines, under Brook's management, the following computers were built:
The M-4 (1957–1960) for the solution of special system tasks at the Radio Technology Institute.
The M-5 (1959–1964) for economics tasks, planning and management of the state economy.
The M-7/200 and M-7/800 (1966–1969) for control of power generation units (the Konakovo Heat Electrical Generating Station, Slavyanskaya Heat Electrical Generating Station) and technological processes.
After retiring in 1964, Brook stayed on at the Institute as a scientific consultant and manager of its scientific-technical council, maintaining an active interest in its work. In the last five years of his life, he received 16 invention certificates. He is credited with more than 100 scientific works, including more than 50 inventions. Brook's contribution to science and technology was highly valued by the Soviet government: he was awarded four Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and a series of several medals.
[10] Translator's Note:These sorts of economic problems were to a great extent the result of the Soviet Union's centrally planned economy, controlled by government units. For example, the price calculations of durable goods were not set by their manufacturers, but instead by a central state body, the State Prices Committee.