It's no brainer. Socialism is better.

I suppose that explains why the ruling elite in the former communist USSR lived high on the hog in nice houses and had cars while the working class people lived in pre-fabricated apartment complexes and didn’t have a car

I'm sure Comrade Stalin and Lenin were suffering deep down. You must have been mislead by misinformation and misunderstanding of Western Capitalists that never completely comprehended dialectical materialism and its complexities where unity of progress and continuity in development transition society into a new cycle with essentially different internal contradictions and laws of motion that on surface appear contradictory in terms of comprehension but it's quite opposite and assertive in terms of nature.

Income stratification in society has existed for thousands of years. It’ll probably exist for eons more.