Did they succeed?

After reading Orleck's work, it appears to me that the goals of these women were long term failure and a short term success. Today, the government's treatment and rhetoric toward the poor has not significantly changed, and all that operation life worked to create has been taken away and given to "professionals" or simply destroyed. In my opinion, Orleck even alludes to under the table arson by the local government against Operation Life. Drug abuse is said to run rampant through the community as well. This should not somehow diminish what they accomplished for themselves and the notoriety they attained, but Orleck's work seems to cast doubt on the ability for the poor to affect their own political change in the long term.