Can you give me the cliffnotes version of the following text? Only focus on the Societist, Alfarus, and the state of the Combine during and after the reign of Alfarus. Ignore the footnotes.

"No matter the strength of our Iversonian convictions, there is always something a little transgressional about discussing Societism. (Subdued audience reaction) You’ll have seen that some of my fellow lecturers have even had threats to disrupt their talks.[1] However, no such disruptions seem to have materialised here and now. And why? Not because I am so intimidating, I think. (Audience chuckles) Rather, it’s just that the mysteries of what happened following the death of Amigo Alfarus are so compelling that even the most Soviet-minded among us cannot help but desire to hear the latest theory, the latest speculation.

For a man who became such a dominant figure of the early twentieth century, Rodrigus Alfarus is a remarkably indistinct asimcon image. Most of this was due to his own design, of course. It was in his interests to ensure that no records survived of his early life, of when he came to believe in Societism, of when he became the de facto dictator of the Combine. Several mutually-contradictory versions of his backstory, each replacing the last, were put out by the Biblioteka Mundial just in his own lifetime, and they have only multiplied since then. The history of Alfarus changed like a chameleon to match changes in the world around him. In the dark days of the plague, Alfarus was the son of a visionary doctor. Earlier, when the early Combine was fighting the IEF, Alfarus was descended from the man who inspired the Duc de Noailles’ son to defect to the UPSA, whose revolution could then still portrayed positively in selective Societist propaganda. About the only background which the Biblioteka did not connect him with was the one which a tentative majority of biographers in the free world believe was his in truth; that he was a career soldier, possibly from a line of career soldiers. But such speculation is fruitless.

You might object to me describing the Silent Revolution as ‘history’s blankest page’. I’ve just talked about how Alfarus’ life became retrospectively shrouded in mystery from the beginning. Another good example, and a parallel for many things I’ll be discussing, is the Jacobin Revolution of 1794 in France. The Revolution was already a complex process to begin with, unprecedented radical forces interacting with an ancient and bewilderingly byzantine ancien regime. But this became all the more confused when successive waves of the revolution turned on their precursors and attempted to expunge them from the record, making themselves the sole arbiter of Latin republican purity. Until, that is, the next group of men at the head of an angry mob came along and consigned them to the phlogisticateur or the chirurgien in turn.[2] Lisieux himself, fearing the symbol of the martyred Le Diamant as a threat, attempted to suppress his document La Carte and replace him with the conveniently simpler figure of L’Épurateur.[3] Thus he tried to write out of history the very man whose martyrdom had ignited the Revolution, a task only slightly less ambitious than his predecessor Robespierre’s abortive attempt to commission a version of the Bible with all the references to God removed.[4]

I could go on with other examples. But what I hope to convince you is that the case of the Silent Revolution of 1938-41 was different, and more profound, than any of the attempts to suppress recent history that had taken place before it. Or since, for that matter. Take my example of revolutionary Paris in the 1790s first. The Jacobin Revolution was taking place in a very different world. France had not a toise of railways to her name and steam engines were barely known outside of M. Cugnot’s workshop of curiosities. Though remaining legally a decentralised feudal state, in terms of political discourse France had become increasingly centred on Paris, especially since the days of Louis XIV. Thus the successive waves of Revolution were not roaring across the country, for the most part; they were merely toppling regime after regime in Paris. The Vendéan revolt was only the most successful illustration of how large parts of the country were left behind, and shocked, by the excesses of Jacobinism in Paris. There were also far fewer newspapers, far fewer printers producing pamphlets such as Le Diamant’s La Carte. When we say that Lisieux was able, in part, to suppress and rewrite the earlier history of the Jacobin Revolution – the numbers of books he had to burn, the number of prominent people he had to have sent to his work camps – they were far fewer than we might picture in today’s connected society. The death of Le Diamant was not broadcast by Motoscopy to the whole world. We might picture Lisieux as running a country with a dictator’s iron grip, but his control only approached modern notions of totalitarianism in the environs of Paris. You may have heard of the Jacobin doctrine that ‘to hold the heart is to hold the nation’ and perhaps now you see the context of this.

Very well; but what about Alfarus’ early life, my other example? Was that not history’s blankest page? No. Whatever Alfarus was before the turn of the twentieth century, it is clear he was not a prominent figure. Suppressing records of his life, of those who had memories of him, was not a difficult task for one of sufficiently ruthless mind. We know how easily skilful propaganda can warp the perceptions of people even about a popular public figure they have grown up seeing, but Alfarus had no such preconceptions to suppress. Even when he became de facto dictator he was initially not well known to the Societist public, preferring to remain in the shadows.[5] It was only in the 1920s that it became clear to the average Amigo or Amiga that, behind the Zonal Rejes supposedly in charge, it was the Kapud of the Celatores who was really calling the shots. Not that many would openly speak of him.

It was this tendency on Alfarus’ part that probably made the epistemic purges of the Silent Revolution possible at all, but it remained a daunting feat. One consequence of Alfarus gradually purging other early Societist revolutionary figures, and having them removed from the records by the Biblioteka, was that eventually the Combine historical narrative vaguely implied that Alfarus himself had been single-handedly responsible for every policy, every move, every victory during the Pandoric Revolution and the war against the the IEF. This meant that when the K.a.K. eventually turned on Alfarus’ legacy as well, they had to confront the idea of who to attribute all of this heroic narrative to. The end result was mostly presenting an even vaguer, nebulous account which implied that the Revolution and early victories had been an anonymous tide of historical inevitability, and that the forces of the nations arrayed against the Societists had spontaneously collapsed under their own contradictions, rather than being defeated either by the heroic Alfarus or whomever had actually commanded forces against them. This may actually be the most poisonous and dangerous legacy of the K.a.K. – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

In 1936, ten years had passed since Alfarus had led the Combine to victory in the War of 1926. (Audience reaction) That’s how it was seen. During the Black Twenties, the Combine had become a target of envy of many, firstly for remaining at peace during the war, and secondly being a source of innovation in the fight against the plague pandemic. To this was added military victory in 1926. It was quite unlike anything Pablo Sanchez would have supported, of course, but by this point that was immaterial. The point is that the Combine recruited many cadres of Societist true believers across the nations in the wake of these successes, and Alfarus’ position seemed untouchable."