I don't think it's an either-or thing.
Like feminism being Coped By the CIA.
It doesn't mean that there wasn't a just cause for the feminist movement. It just means that it was co-opted and turned into a social engineering project. I think this is exactly what the Romans did... they were smart :)
It took Roman goverment several centuries to co-opt Christianity and turn it into authoritarian imperial cult of Catholicism. Before it, it was a genuine liberation and innovation movement, a main threat to the imperial power, and thus a subject of intense repression.
It took American government several decades to co-opt Libertarian Left of 1960s - 1970s and turn it into authoritarian imperial cult of "politically correct" SJWism. Before it, it was a genuine liberation and innovation movement, a main threat to the imperial power, and thus a subject of intense repression.
Genuine liberation and innovation movements, such as Christianity or counter-cultural uprising of the mid-20th century, are never work of some small bunch of elite conspirators, but an authentic work of people's will and vision.
Understandably, elite conspirators would always do their worst to discredit, disrupt and destroy such movements - and, when it fails, to bribe them, manipulate them, institutionalise them and to turn them into yet another form of support for their power, wealth and fame.
Yet it always takes them a lot of time to achieve their goals - and before they succeed, such movements always produce some real, enduring change in society, a change that was not a part of elite conspirators' plans. To the contrary, these are elite conspirators who had to adjust and rewrite their plans to survive yet another actual uprising against them, to adopt to the new situation and to use it for their own benefit.
Some day they will fail to adopt, and their reign will end.
P.S. It is always an important part of the elite conspirators' discreditation work to try to persuade people that the protest and resistance movement was their work from the very start, and therefore there is no sense to participate in any protest or resistance.
P.P.S. Nothing work best for support of the elite conspirators' reign than the persuation of the population that their power is superhuman in its undefeatable greatness, that they are some kind of evil mages commanding demonic forces, knowing and controlling everything, etc.
While, in fact, their power is largely based on fabrication of illusions.