So does then socialism of the Soviet variety involve considerably less?

Soviet socialism involved more wasteful competition than modern free-market ('capitalist') economies, by far. Much of that competition played out in the political arena, through the handing out of all sorts of special privileges and permits as "prizes" to be won. I'm not sure what a social system that involved "considerably less" competition might actually look like. Neo-cameralism of the Moldbuggian variety is often said to have some (rather minor) benefits in reduced social competition, but the costs are rather uncertain and potentially quite high.[1]

[1] (I actually think it might have a useful role to play, but only for the narrow use case of transition from weak authoritarian government like what you see in most of the non-Western world, to something like modern liberal democracy.)