Prior to World War II, work on closed-cycle diesel engines was carried out by S.A. Basilevskiy, who developed a powerplant codenamed REDO.

M-401 made 74 cruises in the Caspian Sea including 68 dives and 360 nmi (670 km; 410 mi) of submerged running on its closed-cycle plant.

The Quebec class had a streamlined conning tower with a fixed snorkel housing at the rear end.

M-256 suffered a fire off Tallinn in the Baltic, which led to the loss of 35 men, while M-351 sank in the Black Sea with no casualties.

Thirty units were built between 1952 and 1957[3] of the 100 planned before the project was abandoned and the Soviet Union developed nuclear-powered boats.