what led to the Mexican Revolution?

Answer 1

Um, which one? The War of Independence with Spain, the war of 1910, or the "mini" revolutions that happened with many of the changes in government after elections. For a little while, Mexico was a member of the coup of the month club, although most people consider the Mexican Revolution to be the most recent, from 1910-1920. If that's the one you mean, I would suggest looking up citations about the following main causes of the Revolution:

1. Agrarian. Although some historians have tried to downplay the ‘popular’, agrarian side of the revolution, it is difficult, in the end, to deny that it did involve massive, and extremely violent, rural rebellions. These ‘rural’ social movements were not all of the same kind, and some rural regions remained quite tranquil during the revolution, until they were disturbed by the interventions of revolutionary armies from outside. Some of these ‘quiet’ regions, like the Yucatan, were places where the most vicious and brutal forms of exploitation of rural people took place, so there is definitely something to explain here. They had also been explosive earlier in the 19th century. Nevertheless, the scale and extensiveness of agrarian movements alone makes it difficult to sustain this ‘revisionist’ view that the agrarian side wasn’t really important. And if we go on to try to gauge the impact of the agrarian movements on Mexico’s subsequent social development, this view seems even harder to sustain.
2. Socioeconomic conditions. First we have ‘feudalism’, then bourgeois revolution, then proletarian revolution. As Gilly acknowledges, Mexico doesn’t fit neatly into either the ‘bourgeois’ or ‘proletarian’ pigeon-hole. Its outcome is not a transition to socialism, but it’s equally hard, Gilly suggests, to see pre-revolutionary Mexico as ‘feudal’, and interpret the revolution as ‘bourgeois’. So Gilly describes the Mexican revolution as ‘mixed’, a kind of ‘half-way house’ between bourgeois and proletarian revolution: it failed to secure the breakthrough to a new social order provided by the later 20th century revolutions, because its ‘mass’ base was ‘peasant’: nevertheless, the participation of the masses gave it a very different character to anything which had happened in history before.
3. Strengthening of central power. Porfirio Díaz succeeded in strengthening centralized state power. He built up the federal army, and enhanced the state's ability to collect taxes. Local communities which hadn't seen any manifestation of state power for decades now had to contend with recruiting sergeants and federal tax collectors.

You should also look into the roles of Poncho Villa, the Church in Mexico, the "War of the Winners," and the main leaders throughout the entire decade (Emiliano Zapata, General Huerta, Eulalio Gutiérrez, Plutarco Elías Calle - there are lots other presidents for that time, as well). HUGE subject, and that's just on THIS Mexican Revolution.

Answer 2

Mexican government. As Milton Friedman once observed: "If the Mexican Government, any Mexican Government, were placed in charge of the Sahara Desert, within three months they would have to import sand."

Answer 3

You can trace its roots to Benito Juarez. Mexico had suffered because of the mingling of church power with state power. Benito Juarez boke that link and introduced separation of church and state, a reform which has never failed to enhance liberty (think Turkey 1923, France 1909, America 1789, Japan 1945, etc.)
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