To add to the excellent answer from DeluxMallu, socialism in Syria meant many things. It meant land reform, dividing large landed estates and reforming tenancy laws to give farmers more secure rights. It meant import substitution, with the government playing a major role in trade, investment, and industry. It included a major expansion of public services, and access to education and healthcare. Government budgets and state payrolls expanded dramatically.

However, private property was respected. Members of the traditional Sunni merchant class (especially those based in Damascus) were often partners with the government. Many industrialists thrived thanks to high tariffs on processed goods. Moreover, members of Assad's clan often accumulated substantial wealth, and after an initial strongly anti-business attitude, the government became more than willing to work with businesses. Poor farmers genuinely saw better access to land and public services, but there was no wholesale attack on the traditolnal elite.

The policies I have described above could apply to a lot of countries in Africa and Asia. Hafez al-Assad was always more concerned with military and geostrategic issues than economic policy, and in a lot of ways these policies were just the recieved wisdom of the times.

Land Reform in Syria Ziad Keilany ,

The Political Economy of Investment in Syria Linda Matar

Certainly more can be said, but this previous question with an answer from /u/DeluxMallu might be useful, while this one from /u/kieslowskifan isn't quite as on the nose, but does look at the Ba'athist party, Communists, and the Soviets so might also be of interest.

I can only speak in regards to the Iraqi side of things. I wouldn't call myself an expert in terms of Middle Eastern history (although that was nominally my undergraduate focus). Moreover, I understand ahead of time that my own personal understanding of socialism in the context of Iraq is somewhat biased given that as a descendant of wealthy Kurdish aristocrats, I hold a certain amount of animosity towards the Baathists.

A key aspect of Baathism or Arab Socialism was "Arabness." In many ways the philosophy can be associated with the ethos of National Socialism in Germany after 1933. Arab Socialism was a brand of "socialism" that borrowed heavily from the ideology of Arab nationalism. After the failure of the Arab coalition during the Six-Day War in 1967, Arab nationalists and intellectuals began looking for new ideological means of explaining their failures to stand against Israel and the "West." The more traditional anti-colonial nature of Arab nationalism gave way to two competing logics to further the goals of Arab states, namely resisting Western imperialism and asserting Arab power and prestige. The two ideologies were the more socialist/communist (or even fascist) informed movements like the Baath movement and Islamic movements. While one was fundamentally secular and the other fundamentally religious, they were both (and continue to be) tied heavily with conceptualizations of the Arab nation and narratives of its former greatness and fundamentally anti-capitalist.

However, given the nationalist nature of Baathism an "other" is ultimately needed to justify the consolidation of state power. For other "socialist" states much of the ire was directed toward the bourgeoisie, aristocrats, or "rich peasants" ie Kulaks in the USSR or "rich peasants" in the Great Leap Forward under Mao.

In Iraq, the Kurds bore the brunt of this "othering." Arabization (التعرب) was the primary political philosophy through which land reform and "socialism" was undertaken. Kurdish lands were confiscated (much like in my own family) and then redistributed to Iraqi peasants or politically connected individuals. Many Kurds were forcibly removed from their homes.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Kirkuk where my family is from. Before the process of Arabization began in the 70s (culminating in the Al Anfal Campaign/Kurdish Genocide in the 80s), the city of Kirkuk was considered by many to be the de facto capital of the Kurdish nation with the largest portion of the population being Kurdish residents. Kirkuk has been a culturally diverse city for centuries though, with many Arabs and Turkmen in the city. So calling it a Kurdish city only is somewhat dubious. Some call it a microcosm of Iraq because of this. By the 90s, over 70 percent of population was Arab. Kurdish people are returning to Kirkuk and the Kurdish regional authority effectively controls the city now.

My point in all of this is to say very simply, Arab socialism in the context of Iraq is much more similar to the economic nationalist, fascist brand of socialism of the Nazis or Mussolini than it is Marxist. Calling Baathism “socialist” is then quite problematic and was primarily a rhetorical device used to drum up support for authoritarian governments. Funnily enough, when my mother was growing up in Kirkuk she was required to read Mein Kampf in high school Hitler’s anti-Semitism fit well into the anti-Zionist ethos of Baathism and “Arab Socialism.”