On peace and revolution

To add a bit of background here, I'm pretty much a pacifist and a Buddhist, so the idea of using violence to resolve things is never something that appeals very much to me. On the other hand, I hold revolutionary ideals close to my heart, since current systems need to change to get better (things should keep moving, because as long as they keep moving, they have the potential of getting better; though that only holds true in an imperfect system, which is what we have, definitely, in my opinion). So this is, again, going to be a bit of me arguing with myself to some degree.
Regardless.
The first time I read Marx's book, The Communist Manifesto, I sincerely didn't like it. It seemed to me like his ideals were about rising up and taking down a sect of people that reinforce oppression, which is outright attacking people who don't agree with you, or who you hold responsible for your current situation. This is of course a very surface-level understanding of Marx's book, since there are a lot of complex circumstances to understand surrounding this situation, and a lot more to it than simply attacking the wealthy and forcing them out of power.
But that initial read does hold some truth to it. Is violence really the only means to establishing a new system? Because a new system is necessary: People are starving and dying homeless on the streets in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. That's a problem, plain and simple. Social reform makes changes, sure enough, but it cannot be enough. The system itself is a problem, since the wealthy can buy power and manipulate politics to their favor. In a system where power is allowed to enforce one's ability to keep it, those with it try to increase it or hold it until they can't possibly do so anymore. I am, ultimately, not an optimist; human nature is going to gravitate toward corrupt behavior. I don't believe that we can allow people to have power for longer than their due, let alone not be held accountable for their actions to society at large for the duration of their having it.
So what d'you think? Does the democratic process as it stands in our country today work? Or is the system itself a problem that needs fixing?
I'm of the belief that the whole system could use reevaluation regardless- change is necessary, and maybe the whole thing needs to go for that to work. But Marx see's violence as the sort of inevitable end to this long problem, and that isn't something I can abide by.