 In a shift that boded poorly for the Soviet regime, many of the prisoners took part knowing full well that they were doing so at the cost of their lives, and prisoners in other camps, namely in the nearby Rudnik camp, had joined with the Kengir prisoners in solidarity, launching their own short-lived strikes.The significance of the temporary freedom enjoyed by those prisoners was not lost on many.In a 1978 review of Solzhenitsyn's book, Hilton Kramer of "The New York Times" declared that the uprising "restored a measure of humane civilization to the prisoners before the state was able to assert its implacable power again."