The Moscow School was planned as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of openness allowed the exhumation of the suppressed people, histories and literature of pre-Soviet times and the USSR’s early years. Lena Nemirovskaya and Yuri Senokosov were Soviet intellectuals, she an art historian, he a philosopher; comfortably placed in the official intellectual hierarchy, uncomfortable in their Soviet skins. They were the planners — planning to illuminate how freedom might be used.
苏联领导人米哈伊尔•戈尔巴乔夫(Mikhail Gorbachev)的开放政策允许苏联成立之前以及苏联早期受打压的人物、历史和文学作品重见天日，在这种背景下，列娜•内米洛夫斯卡娅(Lena Nemirovskaya)和尤里•塞诺科索(Yuri Senokosov)酝酿创办莫斯科政治研究学院(Moscow School of Political Studies)。这两个人是苏联时期的知识分子，前者是艺术史学家，后者是哲学家；他们舒适地位列官方知识分子阶层，却对自己的苏联人身份感到不自在。作为学院的规划者，他们计划向人们阐明如何利用自由。