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Again, it would honestly take a book (Spies by Calder Walton makes the point pretty well although it devolves into ranting about Trump at the end) but I'll summarize.
The level to which the USSR infiltrated the US and its allies was far above the reverse. The Cambridge 5 (who weren't even American although they managed to compromise American intelligence) alone are a more impressive from a HumInt perspective than anything the CIA accomplished during the war (I'll only talk about CIA because british intelligence was laughably compromised). Most of the wins CIA managed were walk-ins caused by the USSR being a shithole, which had nothing to do with the CIA itself, and the balance was still towards the USSR, who had their own walk-ins (usually for money or ideology rather than the desire to defect).
The KGB also penetrated the US policy-making apparatus. Harry Dexter White, who as a Soviet agent may have contributed to the communist victory in China as a treasury official by obstructing financial aid to the Nationalists. Alger Hiss and Lauchlin Currie also come to mind (read about Venona if you're interested in this). The US had no equivalent agents placed to influence Soviet policy. The Soviets also ran the CPUSA.
When the CIA did get close to a win, it was often leaked by one of the many Soviet infiltrators in the CIA or in MI6 whom CIA shared much of their intelligence with. Konstantin Volkov comes to mind.
Overall I think you'd really struggle to make an argument that the US accomplished more of its intelligence goals than the USSR.
I don't think this is controversial among people who study the topic, it may be surprising if you don't though. If you can find someone defending the performance of western intelligence services during the Cold War I'd be interested to read it.
I spent 15 years in the Deep State and I assure you that the US IC did a lot more in the Cold War than you’ve pointed out here. For HUMINT in particular, a lot of the evidence remains classified.
The Soviets were good, the West was a more permissive environment, and communist ideology motivated many. The penetration of the Manhattan Project is perhaps the most successful intelligence operation ever, given the stakes.
But HUMINT is not the only game in town.
Like you mention VENONA, but never any other agency than the CIA.
I mean the USSR is no more, the US and its allies clearly outclassed the Soviets in nearly every arena, and now Russia is a shadow of its former self in its ability to dominate its region, and people constantly theorize that the CIA turned Russia’s neighbors towards the West.
So I think you have it exactly backwards.
I don't have first-hand spook experience or access to classified information, so it's possible you're right. I also don't know nearly as much about the non-HumInt side of the Cold War, although I will say that non-human intelligence doesn't matter if the humans comprising your organization are talking to the other side. A good example of this is PB/Gold. A Great operation that might have been a huge intelligence victory completely ruined because British intelligence was about as watertight as a shower drain.
Yes, this is a big reason, it's not just western incompetence. Sort of like the US IC's continual humiliations at the hands of Cuba, countries that aren't liberal democracies have a much easier time doing this kind of thing and the fellow traveler phenomenon was extremely helpful to the Soviets. My point was that western intelligence communities' results were generally worse than their Soviet counterparts, not that the reason for this was solely incompetence.
I agree with you on nearly every arena, I think intelligence is one arena where the reverse was true. The fact it no longer exists has very little to nothing to do with Western intelligence work imo. Just the penetration at the policy-making level alone is close to dispositive for me, but of course this isn't the kind of question that can be definitively answered.
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