Here is a declassified internal CIA memo from 1956 that literally says Stalin did not have absolute power and people who think he did don't understand the Soviet system

The idea that socialist heads of state are kings is ludicrous and ahistorical, a product of western movies and TV during and after the red scares

I’m simply saying that giving one man absolute power whether it be political

This is standard anti-communist propaganda that unfortunately happens to work on gullible people. It's related to medieval era witch hunting, where you:

1. Create a legend of a supremely evil / nefarious thing, you want to demonize. IE the devil, leaders of revolutionary movements like Robespierre, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Kim Il-Sung, etc.
2. Claim that all people are under the dominion of this sole power, which removes their humanity, and ability to reason or think like you do.
3. Carry out societal-wide demonization and extermination campaigns, to terrorize any potential sympathizers.

Its a really effective tactic that lets you blame a single entity, encourages conformity and intentional ignorance, lets westerners ignore the functioning democracies of socialist states, and the mass movements that supported these various leaders.

I never said that I was a liberal. If anything, I consider myself a market socialist since anything needed to survive shouldn’t be comdified for capital.

If I were to be cheeky, I'd say that market socialism is still liberalism. There's a difference between a Socialist Market Economy, like the PRC, and market socialism. In a socialist market economy, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, while diverse forms of ownership account for small and medium firms, including cooperatives and private ownership. In market socialism, cooperatives form the principle aspect, and as such it is largely weak to the same mechanisms as capitalism.

I’m simply saying that giving one man absolute power whether it be political or through wealth will inevitably lead to corruption. After all, the meme states that tankies are “always right”, and I’m assuming that by tankie they mean the authoritarian left like Stalinism, Maoism, etc.

Neither Stalin nor Mao had absolute power, though. Both the USSR and China under Mao were democratic. For China, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, and the CPC, a working class party, dominates the state. At a democratic level, local elections are direct, while higher levels are elected by lower rungs. At the top, constant opinion gathering and polling occurs, gathering public opinion, driving gradual change. This system is better elaborated on in Professor Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance.

For the USSR, it was quite similar. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about.

By "tankie," OP essentially means anyone that recognizes existing socialist states as valid. This includes the majority of Marxists.

"Market" Socialism is not necessary. Socialism pursues a dictatorship of the proletariat, not the total eradication of the bourgeoise. This means that socialism has to have some form of private ownership and thus some form of market.