As I was reading your review of Archie Brown’s The Rise and Fall of Communism (London: The Bodley Head, 2009) I was struck by many a double take (“Dead End,” July 4, 2009).  It was “an impractical mishmash of ideas, imposed by squabbling zealots that promised much, delivered little, and cost millions of lives.”  What, Christianity?  No, Communism!  Its “first big advantage was that it played on two human appetites: the noble desire for justice and the baser hunger for vengeance.”  Whose, Christianity’s?  No, Communism’s!  “But the intoxicating excitement of revolutionary shortcuts attracted the ruthless and dogmatic, who saw the chance to put into practice muddled utopian notions.”  Whose, Jesus’?  No, Marx’s!  And so on, and so forth.  The gist of my repeated misreading of the article about the so-called “mankind’s biggest mistake” is that such mistakes tend to repeat themselves rather regularly.  Human appetites are forever mixed.  Just like Christianity, Communism is but a human endeavor.  Both survive the wrongdoings of the church or the party long enough not to warrant wholesale dismissal, however.