Socialism will never work because it’s founded on emancipation, and you can’t force people to emancipate themselves. That would be the opposite of emancipation.
I’m not sure if this is a quote, I can’t remember where I heard it.
“Emancipation” in this case meaning emancipation from wage slavery.
Could it lead to communism? Sure. Does it have to? No.
As some of the others have commented a lot of countries have had success with a hybrid of capitalism/socialism.