Beria wanted Stalin to live. He knew that the others will finish him after Stalin's death.
On the contrary, he was confident, that others would pander to him, because he had "trunks of compromises" on Stalin's accessories proving they are culpable for the great purge and other repression along with Stalin. But it was a blunder. Other Stalin's accessories went along with a commitment to liquidate him.
In her memoirs, Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's daughter, mentions that after her father purged his own physicians in 1953, he would not let any doctor treat him. He had high blood pressure and was not taking any medications for it. Consequently, he had a stroke. But everyone was so much afraid of him, that no one dared to open the door to Stalin's room when Stalin did not get out in the morning. Consequently, he was lying on the floor, paralyzed, alone, for the whole day.
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