In July 1937, the USSR formally joined the 1936 London Naval Agreement. Having agreed to the restrictions imposed by the treaty, Soviet shipbuilders began developing a new light cruiser design around the treaty limitations. However, it quickly became clear that it wasn’t possible to match the new design against both treaty limitations and naval needs, despite the already applying weight saving measures. As a result, the decision was made to disregard the treaty restrictions in March 1938, with the design already being approved by the following year.

Initially, 26 ships of the Project 68 cruisers were planned for construction. However, initial construction difficulties resulted in only 7 ships being laid down, of which 4 were later launched. The subsequent German invasion in June 1941 led to all work on ships of the Project 68 class to be suspended.

Following the end of WWII, Soviet shipbuilders quickly realized that, due to the appearance of new technologies and tactics, vessels such as the Project 68 ships were no longer suitable for modern naval combat. Thus, the decision was made to restart their construction under a modernized design. The lead ship of this class was the Soviet light cruiser Chapayev.

Chapayev was laid down in October 1939 and launched in April 1941. Having its construction suspended during the war, it was only restarted in the late 1940s, with the ship finally seeing completion and entering service with the Soviet Navy in May 1950. Chapayev served until 1958, before being assigned to support roles leading up to its retirement. In the early 1960s, the ship was ultimately decommissioned from service and was subsequently broken up for scrap in 1964.