 Parizhskaya Kommuna was refitted in 1928 in preparation for her transfer to the Black Sea Fleet the next year and she was given an open-topped false bow to improve her sea-keeping ability. However, while en route through the Bay of Biscay, she was caught in a heavy storm that damaged the bow and she was forced to put into Brest for repairs. Marat was the first of the class to be reconstructed between 1928 and 8 April 1931. Her superstructure was enlarged, her guns were replaced, the turrets overhauled, the anti-aircraft armament augmented and the fire-control equipment modernized. Her boilers were converted to burn only fuel oil and this produced enough steam that the forward three boilers could be removed and the boiler room was turned into anti-aircraft magazines and control spaces. The forward funnel was angled to the rear and extended to try to keep the exhaust out of the gunnery spaces and the bridge. She was also given a false bow, but hers had a solid top that turned it into a forecastle. Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya was the next ship to rebuilt and profited from the experiences of her sister's modernization between 1931 and 1934. All twenty-five of her old boilers were replaced by a dozen oil-fired boilers originally intended for the Borodino-class battlecruiser Izmail. The space saved was used to add another inboard longitudinal watertight bulkhead that greatly improved her underwater protection. The rest of her modernization was along the same lines as Marat's, except that the latter's tubular foremast was replaced by a sturdier semi-conical mast, a new aft structure was built in front of the rear conning tower which caused the mainmast to be moved forward, her forward funnel was curved to the rear to better keep the bridge clear of exhaust gases and the thickness of her turret roofs was increased to 152 millimeters (6.0 in). Parizhskaya Kommuna began her two-stage reconstruction in 1933 along the lines of Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya's modernization. Major differences were that her guns and turrets were improved to increase their rate of fire to about two rounds per minutes and to extend their range, she was the first ship of the class to receive light anti-aircraft guns and her forward funnel was given a more sinuous curve to direct its exhaust gases away from the forward superstructure. She completed these alterations in 1938, but was returned to the dockyard from December 1939 through July 1940 to receive a new armored deck and anti-torpedo bulges which cured her stability problems and greatly increased her underwater protection at a modest cost in speed.
