  The main goal of the paper is to prove the existence of the universal cover
for $RCD^*(K,N)$-spaces. This generalizes earlier work of C. Sormani and the
second named author on the existence of universal covers for Ricci limit
spaces. As a result, we also obtain several structure results on the (revised)
fundamental group of such spaces. These are the first topological results for
$RCD^{*}(K,N)$-spaces without extra structural-topological assumptions (such as
semi-local simple connectedness).
