Reviewers noted that no other similar vast compilation of worldwide Communist activities had existed prior to the creation of this book series, becoming "the most authoritative word on the subject".

In a foreword in the first edition, W. Glenn Campbell, Director of The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, stated the following reasons for creating such a volume: The international communist movement has had a profound impact inupon the modern world.

For these reasons, the Hoover Institution decided to begin publication of a Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, a project designed to provide an annual compendium and reference work for scholars, teachers, students, policymakers, journalists, and others.

[10] The first edition of the Yearbook appeared in conjunction with another publication by the Hoover Institution: World Communism: A Handbook 1918–1965, which surveyed the historical and structural developments of all communist parties, from their foundation until the end of 1965.

As Gerald Segal writing for the International Affairs put it in 1990, the Yearbook was still a "reliable" and "essential" reference work, however with all the changes in the Communist world, including "the breaching of the Berlin Wall and the coming of political pluralism to most of Eastern Europe", it was becoming a repository of "esoteric history".

The Washington Post noted how the discontinuation of the Yearbook was a sign of the times, stating: In addition to trying to take an active role in the changes sweeping the Soviet Union, American experts also are seeking new directions for scholarship that long focused exclusively on communism and the Cold War.

In a symbolic underscoring of how outmoded those topics suddenly have become, the Hoover Institution has decided that its just published Yearbook of International Communist Affairs will be the last edition of a work long regarded as the most authoritative word on the subject.

"[2] According to the 1979 edition (and representative of the entire series), the purpose was to provide basic data concerning organizational and personnel changes, attitudes towards domestic and foreign policies, and activities of communist parties and international front organizations through the world.

Profiles on each party included founding date, legal or proscribed status, membership, electoral and parliamentary (if any) strength, leadership, auxiliary organizations, domestic activities, ideological orientation, views on international issues, attitude toward the Sino-Soviet dispute, and principal news media.

[3] In subsequent volumes, the series continued to be praised, with multiple academic reviewers describing the book series as being a "monumental study"[4] having "inestimable value for anyone interested in international affairs",[19] a scholarly tool very rich in detail[19][16][2] and comprehensive in scope,[10][11][16][9] free of cold war jargon,[19] detached and impartial,[11][4] and overall being a good distillation of the prior year's events into a single volume,[10] and "best available reference on the contemporary communist world".

[16] Early in the series some reviewers pointed that the wealth of compiled objective data in the book would have benefitted from the editors providing more interpretation, analysis, and theoretical considerations.

[4][16] In that regard, the American Political Science Review further noted that the work contained "too much factual summary",[4] however "within the framework and strictures of this probably insoluble problem, Staar and his able editorial staff did an outstanding job in offering us invaluable raw materials"[4] that are of value to further study of the movement and literature of contemporary international Communist affairs.

[11] Near the end of the series, and shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gerald Segal writing in 1990 for the International Affairs journal, commented on the declining relevance of the book series as communism as a major geopolitical factor was fading; for "those who dare to retain an interest in comparative communism" the 1990 volume may continue to offer them an "essential"[14] "meticulous report" on the prior year's events,[14] but for most, the events in the communist world had become "esoteric history".

[1] The World Strength of the Communist Party Organizations, was an annual report on communism of more limited scope, published by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the U.S. Department of State since 1948.