The Chinese political season has begun to make the Republican Presidential contest look like a group hug. On Thursday, we learned that Bo Xilai—the closest China has to Huey Long—has been toppled, the culmination of a scandal that has shown the highest ranks of Chinese wealth and politics to be an even more dangerous realm that we thought. Before I look at a point or two, here’s a helpful indicator of how big of a kerfuffle this is in China: Li Yuan, editor of the Chinese edition of the Wall Street Journal, mused today about whether it is the “biggest drama in Chinese politics since 1989?”

As the Communist Party secretary of the mega-city Chongqing, Bo was on the stump this year, in a sense, because he was gunning for a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. He was the rare charismatic figure in Chinese politics, a populist and back-slapper who floated easily between opportunities. A few years ago, when he was commerce minister, I was waiting outside his office when he came bursting through the door, laughing and bidding farewell to his last appointment: a delegation that looked very pleased to receive such generous treatment. Who were the guests? I asked one of the ladies serving tea. “Sudan,” she said. (I was there trailing then-Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, who went in for the next meeting on the docket, a demonstration, if nothing else, of Bo’s range.)

There are lots of theories about what did Bo in. For one thing, he was doing retail politics in a place that doesn’t want it, and that made his peers look bad. He also seemed too nostalgic for the ardor and infighting of the Cultural Revolution, which worried quasi-liberals. (For more on these, see the views of this smart troika.)

But I’m most interested in corruption. Bo’s signature move was sponsorship of a fierce “smash black” campaign, the most sweeping crackdown on “black society” or “organized crime” in the country’s recent history. In that effort, security forces under his command prosecuted or abused mobsters and tycoons and thereby did something uncomfortable for everyone: illuminated how those two categories have come to overlap in China. Defining who is a hero out of Horatio Alger and who is a world-class crook has always been a challenge for a country in the midst of a Gilded Age, but in China it has become especially difficult.

Take, for example, the case of Li Jun, a former billionaire property developer from Bo’s fiefdom, who has arrested, tortured, and stripped of his assets after he was swept up in the “smash black” campaign and accused of wrongdoing, which he denies. He has now fled the country and provided one of the most detailed testimonials yet on what’s unfolding.

I am reminded of a 2007 report by the U.S. National Institute of Justice that quoted a Chinese official in Beijing saying “According to our law, there are four types of organized crime groups: (1) criminal groups; (2) criminal organizations; (3) black society-like criminal organizations; and (4) black societies. At this point, we don’t yet have black societies, but we expect them to be formed in the very near future.” (The emphasis is mine.) The official was right. But just how to go after those groups is another story. “Fight corruption too little and destroy the country, fight it too much and destroy the party,” former Party elder Chen Yun is said to have declared.

It didn’t help Bo that his own family became known for ostentatious displays of wealth; his son was seen around town driving a red Ferrari, which is notable for the offspring of a career civil servant. In going after a mix of interests with his own local—and brutal and unchecked—campaign for power, Bo just may have upset the delicate détente between powerful families and constituencies that keeps élite politics in check. Shawn Shieh, a Beijing-based analyst who has studied corruption, said today:

The problem with corruption campaigns is that they take on a life of their own and can touch people in high places. It’s like trying to clean out a small part of a spider web. You can’t without the spider at the web’s center knowing about it. That’s when you want support and involvement at the highest levels. Apparently Bo felt he had that support to go ahead with his house cleaning, but apparently, it wasn’t enough.

No word yet on what will happen to Bo. He could end up in jail or with a ceremonial new job. But usually those consolation gigs are announced at the time of a firing, so it doesn’t bode well for him. I’m reminded of a line by China hand Jim McGregor about investing in Chinese stocks: “Do you enjoy juggling live hand grenades and roaring chainsaws?” Turns out the same can be said about running for office.

Photograph by Liu Jin/AFP/Getty Images.