First, death must be understood in a new way. Similar to understand-ing the soul as continuing to exist in spite of having left the body, we canunderstand death as a change in a human’s material state. For Fedorov, ourethical obligation to use reason and knowledge to care for the sick extendsto the curing of death: the dead must be brought back to life—not as soulsin heaven, but in material form, in this world, with all their memories andknowledge. From this point of view, history, the past, and the graveyardbecome a field full of amazing potential: nothing is finished and every-one and everything must continue. Fedorov’s philosophy of the “com-mon task” thus calls for a total reorientation of social relations, productiveforces, economy, and politics toward the singular goal of achieving physicalimmortality and material resurrection. We cannot consider any person toviii Forewordbe really dead and gone until we have exhausted every possibility for reviv-ing him or her