The short answer is yes. The long answer is below.

As Ba'athists, they would have been influenced by a slightly different brand of socialism than what is normally thought of as classical Socialism.

The Ba'athist "brand" of Socialism is based on a pan-Arabic unity and that modernizing the Arab nations is the only way to do this. This differs from traditional Socialism in that the traditional brand has state control of production.

Hussein was more successful in modernizing Iraq than Assad was in Syria due to the large oil reserves in Iraq and their ability to exploit them economically. This gave the Hussein government more money to modernize Iraqi industry and increase the welfare state (and enrich the elite of course).

Assad was under the Soviet umbrella for the majority of his rule, so would have been thought of as "more socialist" than Hussein, who was supported by the US (until he was deemed unnecessary).

Both Hussein and the Assad regimes are/were considered to be dictatorships due to their methods of holding on to power. While this is true, it also follows one of the basic tenets of Ba'athism, which is that the state will work towards being a single party state so there can be no opposition to the modernization project.