ABSTRACT
Socialism has been affected by the ethnic and linguistic divisions of Belgian society. Belgium is divided into two main groups, the Flemish and Walloons, the first originally speaking a variant of Dutch, the second a Romance language resembling French. Jef Rens is perhaps the most respected elder statesman of the Belgian socialist movement. Many of Jef Rens' reflections deal with the person and ideas of Hendrik De Man. He returned to Belgium in the 1960s and presided over the advisory councils of the Cooperation au Developpement, the National Labor Council, and the National Science Council, the most prestigious positions in the Belgian State. Rens studied with De Man in Frankfurt in 1932 and worked with him when De Man returned to Belgium in 1933 to develop the campaign for the Plan du Travail. In 1941, Rens denounced his old teacher on the BBC, but he has never stopped pondering the meaning of the career of De Man.
