This article explores the relationship between the sent-down youth movement and economic development in rural China during the Cultural Revolution. It examines ways in which sent-down youth themselves initiated improvements in rural life, and more importantly, how local officials used both their presence to acquire equipment and technical training and their skills and education to promote rural industry. The sent-down youth offices established in the cities and the countryside inadvertently provided connections between remote rural counties and large urban centres that enabled the transfer of a significant quantity of material goods, ranging from electrical wires and broadcast cables to tractors and factory machinery. Ultimately, we show how individual sent-down youths, their families, and both urban and rural officials – none of whom had a role in determining government policies – identified and made use of resources that those policies unintentionally produced.
