How did the Soviets convince British and Americans to spy for them when anti Soviet propaganda was high and it was a known fact that quality of life in the Soviet Union was below that in the US.
Hi there! I have answered a similar question here:
Your question however is also specifically about ''convincing'' Westerners to spy for the Soviet bloc, so I will focus on that aspect here.
The methods that Soviet intelligence used to convince, or ''recruit'' people, changed over time as the appeal and image of Soviet Communism gradually began to wane after 1956, reaching rock bottom in 1968 as a result of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and became synonymous with ailing and dying bureaucrats in the 1980's. This also touches upon the more fundamental question why people decide to betray their country at all, and it is still relevant to counterintelligence professionals today so they can develop policies to prevent it, or at least recognize the warning signs. How the KGB and GRU tried to recruit Westerners, and why those Westerners fell for it, are therefore two different things.
Based on revelations from KGB memoirs, defectors' stories, but also the Mitrokhin archive leaks and KGB instructions leaked by Oleg Gordievsky, historians have gotten a unique look in the kitchen secrets of one of the largest spy agencies in history.
The KGB employed spotters to see who might have access to valuable information and who might potentially be recruited. They were not looking for people with Communist sympathies, since those people were probably already on the FBI's watch-list, and usually were not found among or close to NATO secrets. They could have recruited the entire Communist Party of the USA, but that would not have gotten the KGB anywhere. For the purpose of spotting, the KGB made use of two types of spotters. They operated from a Rezidentura, usually located within an embassy or consulate, from which intelligence officers under diplomatic cover or with an official press accreditation could freely roam around the target country, and even have a plausible reason for attending cocktail parties with politicians, other journalists, diplomats and civil servants. The diplomatic post of ''cultural attaché'' was one of those typical occupations that enabled KGB officers to move around among Western journalistic, diplomatic and political circles. Virtually all of the Soviet Union's accredited journalists and press officials were from the KGB for the same reason.
The KGB and GRU also employed illegals for the purpose of identifying potential agents. These were living in the West under false identities, usually under some cover story of being immigrants, and spent pretty much their entire career living and working as regular people. This put them in a unique spot to look out for potential agents. As a result, the KGB developed and cultivated networks both from its Rezidentura in an embassy, as well as so-called ''illegal networks''.
Once a potential agent had been identified, he became an ''object under study'', or Ob'ekt Razrabotki in KGB jargon. This meant they combed through his or her entire life, sexual preferrences, finances, political leanings, relationships with their employer, personality, looking for anything that could be exploited to hook them. This could take several months. In some cases, especially among illegal networks, the person to be recruited never realized they worked for the Russians. They believed the documents they supplied were used by some other organization, dedicated to peace for example. Usually though, once a KGB officer had spoken to his target several times he would request for their cooperation with the Soviet Union. Sexuality could be exploited for blackmail (Kompromat'), career and workfloor frustrations (or basically personal pride) was often a reason to cooperate, financial woes or gains could be exploited by the KGB - especially after the 1970's it had to rely on bribery, and in some cases, drawing on misguided idealism or hero-complexes of Westerners fearing that the Cold War might escalate if they didn't supply the Soviets with some information.
Once an agent had agreed to do one thing, he was chained. The KGB could toss him back into the sea at any moment and expose them. Hence even ''idealistic'' types were forced to accept some kind of payment, however small, to create a sacred bond: the agent depended with his freedom on the KGB, and so the KGB could trust what the agent supplied them. Money was what made the spy business go round. Even the chief of East-German intelligence however, admitted that he was puzzled why well-educated Westerners so often failed to understand that once they agreed on doing one thing for a spy agency, the evidence would be kept in a vault forever, always ready to be taken out when needed. His agency also specialized in the art of seducing women, making them fall in love with an illegal and then ask them for information. These women included especially administrative employees of Foreign ministries, to whom no one paid attention, but who had access to plenty of valuable material.
Finally, especially in the wild early days of the 1950's and '60's, the KGB had another particularly aggressive method of recruitment. The KGB's Counterintelligence department was responsible for the surveillance of foreign embassies in Moscow and foreign diplomats. I have come across stories in archives of KGB teams literally abducting a Japanese military attaché in Moscow, taking him to a hotel room full of luxuries, and claiming to have evidence of spying and that they wouldn't cause a scandal if he decided to cooperate. The Japanese official didn't fall for it, and quickly left the USSR afterwards. In another case, the wife of a diplomat was accused of illegally selling Western goods, again as an attempt to blackmail diplomats into cooperation. Still in the 1970's, the KGB tried to convince a US diplomat of Ukrainian descent on a visit to the Caucasus that they had evidence of his family's collaboration with the Nazi's that could cost him his career. The official immediately warned the FBI and the KGB gave up.
The most important KGB moles in the US during the Cold War however never needed convincing. They were so-called walk-ins, they volunteered their services. In none of these cases did their political leanings motivate them. They often believed their information was quite harmless - it was a game to them, they enjoyed the thrill of being a mole, they often wanted to humiliate the organisation they betrayed, and they wanted to earn some extra money.
This is why intelligence professionals need to undergo regular background checks, so that it can be monitored whether someone is extortionable. An intelligence professional is basically not allowed to have any secrets or skeletons in the closet for his employer. During the Cold War, people with a criminal past, addictions, financial problems, homosexuality, relatives behind the Iron Curtain, questionable public behaviour or political beliefs - all were excluded from working for the CIA, NSA, FBI etc, because they were vulnerable to extortion.