At the very least it has lanced a festering boil which has been poisoning the party internally and incrementally dismantling its chances at the next election.
The question many will ask, however, is: has his precipitous move already destroyed any chance of Labor remaining in power?
This bitter "divorce" has been playing out behind the scenes for many months, as Mr Rudd - still wounded and smarting from the ambush that ejected him from the prime minister's seat in 2010 - surveyed the dismal and diminishing poll ratings of his successor, Julia Gillard. While unspecified rumblings of a leadership challenge echoed through Canberra's political undergrowth, promoted, Ms Gillard's supporters say, by the Rudd camp, it was only in the last several days that Gillard loyalists, such as Simon Crean and Wayne Swan, spoke out. In so doing, arguably they gave Mr Rudd an opening to break cover.
Speaking from Washington DC at the carefully chosen hour of 5.20pm in eastern Australia - just in time for the early evening news slots - Mr Rudd said he could no longer work in a Cabinet in which he was constantly undermined and, since Ms Gillard chose not to repudiate such attacks, in which it had become evident he did not enjoy the confidence of the Prime Minister.
He hit out at "faceless men" who he said were running Labor, drawing an obvious link between Labor's backroom powerbrokers and Ms Gillard in her ousting of him from the prime minister's office. He said he would never launch "a stealth attack on a sitting prime minister who was elected by the people" - a clear swipe at Ms Gillard - and said such an attack should never happen again. He said the party required a change of culture, plainly implying that he was the man for the job, and reaching out over the heads of his caucus colleagues to the electorate.
This is probably his best chance of success. For while Mr Rudd is disliked with a passion by many of his colleagues, he appears to retain some degree of affection, and sympathy, from voters. Many did not like the way he was displaced and have not subsequently warmed to Ms Gillard.
The Prime Minister has not been a popular success. High office appears to have blunted her combative, sharp-edged tongue. It was this that marked her out as a fierce and uncompromising politician with the necessary teeth to carry the day on some of the issues - the controversial mining tax, for example - she has staked out as her battleground. Charisma has never been her forte; rather she claims, that unlike Mr Rudd, she gets things done.
But apparently overwhelming caucus support for Ms Gillard - estimates yesterday put Mr Rudd's at only 30-40 out of 103 seats - may not be the end of the matter. The election in Queensland may have some bearing on the outcome; so, too, will the position of the independents who together give Labor its razor-thin, one-vote majority. Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott have already intimated a Rudd-led Labor Party could not count on their support.
Mr Rudd's trump card, as he emphasised on Wednesday, remains the question of who can lead the party to victory at the next election. Not Ms Gillard, he insists. If he is correct, for the Labor caucus the matter becomes one of two unenviable choices: lose the election and lose their jobs; or swallow their pride - and a large rat called Kevin.
Notwithstanding the Australian Labor Party's history of such divisive public bloodletting, Opposition leader Tony Abbott probably cannot believe his luck.
Given his opponents' apparent electoral death wish, he could be forgiven for imagining he will hardly even need to turn up at the next election to win it hands down.
