it's an imaginary distinction. every "color revolution" represents some real current of popular sentiment within a society. the question is not "are all these people that i'm seeing in the streets actually all paid protestors?" but rather "what segment of the society as a whole are these people speaking for, and what are their interests?"

recall the trucker protests in canada. these were real pissed off truckers using a small number of large machines to cause a lot of economic disruption. but by and large they were middle class small holders who owned their own vehicles and could afford to miss work for weeks at a time, not to articulate any specific demands, but to throw a tantrum brought on by their ambient sense that they were not the god kings of their own legacy that settler mythology taught them they could be.