VERY strange things are happening to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a few of which we might be able to divine on Friday, when General Secretary Jiang Zemin is scheduled to give a major address to the nation.
Mr Jiang will launch an unprecedentedly vociferous campaign against corruption, which has worsened in spite of the party's almost daily jeremiads.
The party chief's nationally televised speech will be made on the occasion of the CCP's largest-ever anti-graft summit, which will be attended by national and provincial leaders as well as security and morality squads.
Given the gravity of the situation, Mr Jiang's declaration of war might sound laudable if not a bit tardy. China analysts who have seen parts of the draft, however, are alarmed by its Maoist and extremely xenophobic overtones.
First of all, the Large-scale Anti-corruption Struggle - as Mr Jiang's crusade is officially known - will be a qunzhong yundong, or mass movement, reminiscent of such brainchildren of the Great Helmsman's as the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Struggle Against the Three Evils, and later, the Struggle Against the Five Evils, in the 1950s.
Qunzhong yundong, the most disastrous of which was the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), have been decried by Western political scientists as unscientific if not irrational and feudalistic because their effectiveness often hinges on how successfully charismatic leaders can whip up mass hysteria.