The Plan? To Resurrect Every Person Who Ever Lived

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The Plan? To Resurrect Every Person Who Ever Lived<br>Book review of "What was Man Created For? The Philosophy of the Common Task"

Jonas<br>Jun 18, 2026

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Nikolai Fedorov, the 19th century Russian scholar, writes, “Our task is to make nature, the forces of nature, into an instrument of universal resuscitation and to become a union of immortal beings.” Fedorov’s vision for humanity is for all of us to live in harmony, united by our collective work toward a common goal. That goal is to completely control nature, to bring back to life every single person who has ever existed, and to spread across the entire universe. In short, to instantiate heaven in our current plane of existence. Fedorov viewed this as the fulfillment of Christ’s teachings.<br>I recently read What was Man Created For? The Philosophy of the Common Task. It contains the selected works of Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov, translated from Russian and abridged by Elisabeth Koutaissoff and Marilyn Minto. Fedorov, who lived from 1829-1903, probably wins the award for Most Ambitious Idea Ever Proposed. Throughout the book, Fedorov spends his time shaking humanity by the shoulders, shouting, “Why do we fight each other! Why do we disrespect our ancestors! Why do we let nature rule over us! Why are we ok with death!”

Fedorov was against having his picture taken or painted, so his friend decided to sketch this picture of him in secret.<br>Fedorov’s Philosophy

What he disdains most of all is the disunity of humanity. It’s urbanites against farmers, academics against common folk, nations against nations, sons against fathers, and so on. On the urbanites vs the farmers, Fedorov regards the urbanites as producing useless toys of consumerism, whereas the farmers are the ones doing actual work. Academics, he explains, only deal in the world of theories not the world of practicality, and what useful knowledge they do have, they do not share freely with others. As for nations, they just wage war with each other over trivial disputes. And as for sons, they do not properly respect their ancestors. How do we solve this disunity? Fedorov’s answer:<br>The union of all the abilities and energies of all nations can be achieved through the school: the school-church (in the name of the Trinity and the Resurrection uniting for resuscitation) , the school-museum (the shrine of the ancestors) and the school-camp (serving the transition from nomadic to settled life, from urban to rural - to life alongside the dust of the fathers, near their graves).

Basically the path to unification is educating everyone in the right way (i.e. making sure everyone learns the importance of The Common Task). This involves a relocation of people from big cities to small towns so that all of humanity pitches in to tend to the local crops and can conduct their own small experiments to contribute to humanity’s collective knowledge (since humanity has a lot to learn in order to figure out to resurrect everyone). Another crucial detail of this plan is that families will live right next to where their ancestors are buried, to help foster the relationship of progeny to their progenitors. Then a global peace conference will occur and all nations will unite. It’s a bit of the meme: “Step 1: Education. Step 2: Relocation. Step 3: ??? Step 4: Unite all of humanity.”<br>After his hatred of disunity, or tied with it, Fedorov hates the blind force of nature. The blind force of nature is everything that happens in the world that we don’t control (see the Judge from Blood Meridian). The blind force of nature is a drought which causes a famine, it is a disease that wipes out a village, and most importantly, it is death. Conquering the blind force is The Common Task, and victory will be declared when all ancestors are resurrected and we spread across the universe. When commenting on the necessity to study and control the blind force Fedorov remarks, “Indeed, can there be any other purpose or task for a being endowed with consciousness?” The biggest question we should be asking, he implores, is, “Why do the living die?”<br>The highest moral duty is something Fedorov calls Supramoralism. “Supramoralism is the duty to return life to our ancestors; it is the highest and incontrovertibly universal morality, the morality of rational and sensate beings…” This he explains is not only highest Cristian duty, but Christianity itself.<br>You may be wondering how literal this whole resurrection of all humans actually is to Fedorov. Answer: very. He is supremely interested in scientific advancement, and sees it as the path to achieving the resurrection. His scientific fascination at the time of his writing is on new progress in controlling weather. “We suddenly heard of experiments in rainmaking by means of explosives - that is, by the very substances which hitherto were used solely for wars foreign and domestic.” Weather is particularly important to Fedorov since...