In my humble opinion (and I'm stressing that, I'm not a historian and I haven't studied the subject), successful revolutions that create a lasting, peaceful and

In my humble opinion (and I'm stressing that, I'm not a historian and I haven't studied the subject), successful revolutions that create a lasting, peaceful and prosperous society are mostly the ones that are not won with weapons. Examples include India (Gandhi as the quintessential peaceful revolutionary), the whole Eastern block (East Germany, Romania etc.), South Africa. On the other hand, revolutions fought with weapons tend to lead to long simmering civil wars (Afghanistan, many African nations), or oppressive governments (Cuba, Libya, Iran). Sure, there are counterexamples, the US being the main one, but I think that is a somewhat unique setting (emigrant colonists).