According to Soviet archives, there were up to 16,378 inmates on strike at the same time. It is significant that the uprising took place before the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria and its suppression coincided with news of his arrest. The preconditions for the uprising can be seen as the following: the arrival of waves of prisoners to the Gorlag, who had participated in the uprisings of 1952, the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953 and the fact that the amnesty that followed his death only applied to (non-political) criminals and convicts with short prison terms, the percentage of which was very low in Gorlag.