Is a Revolution Really Necessary?

Being half Colombian and half Puerto Rican, my parents have exposed me to both cultures. On one side, Colombia is the last country in the hemisphere with an ongoing political armed conflict. Although it's democracy has only been interrupted for a couple of years since its independence, so has its war. Colombia is a country that even today the fear of being kidnapped is spread along the situation. On the other side, Puerto Rico, after it was invaded by the US in the Spanish-American War, was introduced to the strong American market economy. For about twenty years, when the Americans decided to name it Porto Rico for their convenience, the island was ruled under a strictly military and colonial regime. American companies and missionaries rushed to transform the island. Around the fifties, Puerto Ricans started to demand more freedom and political rights. They had already got their American citizenships back in the military draft for World War I, but they wanted their own governor. By the time they obtained a free-associated political status, Puerto Rico had an enviable GDP per capita for the rest of the world, and with quite low inequality.
In My Colombian War, Paternostro hints socialist or communist comments, probably because of abuses she saw by Colombian aristocrats as well as her identity crisis. A lot of rebel groups and political parties have wanted to make Colombia a communist country, but I truly believe it's not a good solution. If one compares Cuba with Puerto Rico, it is evident that capitalism has worked for Puerto Rico. The things that people claim are good about Cuba, like health, are actually better in Puerto Rico, which has a higher life expectancy and lower maternity death rate along other better statistics like almost twice Cuba's GDP per capita. All these countries, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Colombia, have very similar backgrounds so, in an barely educated opinion, I think that Colombia should take the track that has worked for most. Capitalism if definitively not perfect, but where do people have better : Cuba and Myanmar or Puerto Rico and Singapore? If my grandparents had divorced in another Latin American country, my grandmother probably wouldn't have been able to raise her daughters as she became a prominent lawyer through meritocracy. Again, capitalism is not perfect but it does reward good works and allows people to improve their lives.
As I read Paternostro's memoir, set up in Barranquilla, I can perfectly imagine many of the things she says in Puerto Rico about fifty years ago. The revolutionary groups the author talks about could be compared to the Puerto Rican Macheteros, an independent and socialist group, who was fueled by the Soviets. They make me think of the M19 in Colombia, except they eventually died out, unable to defeat the US, the world power. Puerto Rico kept on being capitalist and a colony, whether for good or bad, and the economy is currently on crisis. Nevertheless, Puerto Ricans struggle to get the latest iPhone model or to buy tickets to visit their long gone relatives in New York, not to get food or electricity. When Paternostro complains about the mean feudal Colombians, she should also consider that the situation can evolve into a relatively helpful capitalism.
The following link compares the Cuban and Puerto Rican economies, you be the judge: http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Cuba/Puerto-Rico/Economy.