So, watching the news these past years I'm steadily loosing all faith that revolutions actually result in positive change for the people. I'm no historian but have a good knowledge of history for someone who never studied it outside of high school, however, I can't seem to think of a non-colonial revolution that ended well for the populace. From what I recall, the most famous revolution - the French revolution was very bloody and hurt many people without necessarily helping anyone... and then Napoleon became emperor so all that blood didn't seem to accomplish much. More recently we're witness to a lot of revolutions that bring down oppressive dictators but the aftermath is chaos, a drop in quality of life and extremists coming to power.
My question is, what examples can you give me of revolutions that improved the lives of the people (again, not counting colonial revolutions, as I feel those are in a different class and are comparable to contemporary revolutions).
The French revolution did cause war and warfare over much of Europe, but it also abolished old feudal laws all over Europe. Modern courts where everyone was alike before the law (before this noblemen and clergy over much of Europe could only be judged by their peers, commoners not so much) and noblemen did not have the right to enact justice on their estates arose. Serfdom was abolished (save for Russia and Hungary) and free movement of goods and people became much more common.
The 1848 Sonderbund war in Switzerland created the now-existing Swiss confederacy.
The 1848 revolutions ended most of the post-Napoleonic absolutism and forced through liberal changes in law and the end of noble privelidges in Romania. Danish absolutism ended and a parliament was instituted.
The spring 1917 collection of riots and strikes have often been called the "1917 revolution" in Sweden. It led to full suffrage and parliamentarism.