Short answers, pulled from the story.
Soviet collectivization was the forced transformation of individual peasant farming into collective and state-controlled farms, carried out between 1928 and 1940 as part of the first five-year plan. The policy aimed to increase food supply for urban workers, supply raw materials to industry, and generate grain for export. By 1936, roughly 90% of Soviet agriculture had been collectivized.
Scholars estimate the total death toll from the collectivization program at approximately 12 million, counting both direct and indirect deaths. The famine of 1932-33 alone killed an estimated 5.7 to 8.7 million people from starvation. At the 1945 Yalta Conference, Winston Churchill asked Stalin how many had died, and Stalin responded with a shrug.
The Law of Spikelets was the informal name for the Decree on the Protection of Socialist Property, issued on the 7th of August 1932. It made theft of collective farm property punishable by death, and Soviet authorities used it to arrest peasants, including children, who gathered grain in collective fields after the harvest.
Women were the primary vehicle for rumors circulating in Soviet villages about collectivization. They physically blocked the entrances to the huts of peasants about to be exiled, forcibly reclaimed socialized seed and livestock, and led assaults on local officials. Because Soviet authorities viewed women as the most backward part of the peasantry, they typically received lighter punishments, which allowed them to take greater risks than men.
Horses fell from 36.1 million in 1928 to 12.7 million by 1950. Cattle declined from 33.2 million to 24.6 million over the same period, and sheep from 114.6 million to 91.6 million by 1941. Soviet farm animal stocks did not begin approaching 1928 levels until the late 1950s.
Alfred Rosenberg issued an Agrarian Law in February 1942 annulling Soviet farming legislation and promising private farms to those who collaborated with German occupiers. Hermann Goring overrode this plan and demanded the kolkhozes be retained. By 1943, German authorities had converted 30% of kolkhozes into "agricultural cooperatives" but had made no conversions to private farms.