[kevbin]

I'd be curious to know which aircraft were actually better than their US contemporaries and by which criteria they'd be judged better.

The Mig-25 seems like a good example of a Soviet aircraft considered better than its US contemporaries, at the time. Misunderstanding and misinformation let the US to think they were far, far behind the Soviet Union. Viktor Belenko cleared that up! It was a plane good at just one thing, with downsides that would never let it through a (non-CIA-directed) US procurement process. On the plus side, competition, fear, and rivalry, drove the US to some amazing research, engineering, and innovation.

As a child at a local military airshow, the F-15 was awesome, dangerously beautiful. Shamed even the X-wings and Tie fighters I'd just seen on the big screen. Many years later, I had a similar feeling watching an Su-27 at Farnborough; Sukhoi captured some aesthetic that Mikoyan-Gurevich never seemed to get right, and did it better than any western contemporary.

[zokier]

I don't think it's controversial to say that MiG-21 compared favorably to its contemporaries when introduced. Afaik it successfully fought off newer, much more expensive, American F-4s in Vietnam war.