Beginning in the 1920's Iosif Stalin began institutionalizing agriculture in the USSR, this resulted in peasants losing land that they had held since the 1860's, and it being collectivized into Kolkhoz, or collective farms. In Russia proper there was a marked resistance to this, the so called "Kulaks" or landed peasants that were not going along with socialization of agriculture, beginning in 1929. By 1932 this programme began in earnest in Ukraine, and resistance was much greater. The government accused peasants of hoarding grain and not selling it to the state, and seized any and all grain, land, homes etc. in their efforts. As a result they created a false famine, resulting in the deaths of betwixt 2.5 and 3 million Ukrainians, Russians, Tartars etc. in Ukraine. The great majority of the victims were Ukrainian nationals.
This coin commemorates the 75th anniversary of the "Holodomor" or death by hunger, aka a genocide and both terms are noted on the reverse of the coin. The emblematic little girl, emaciated from this starvation is the subject of the obverse of the coin, so helpless and innocent. The reverse of the piece has an image from a memorial to the event, with the legend "Holdomor - Genocide of the Ukrainian People 1932-1933".
This event marked the beginnings of one of the great dictators of the 20th centuries pogroms against humanity, few people now would equate Iosif Stalin with being responsible for murdering more people than even Adolf Hitler, but he managed to, he had 30+ years to wrought destruction in his own USSR, against Russians, Ukrainians, everybody that he could not have found favour with. When the fascists from Germany invaded Ukraine in 1941, the Ukrainians initially welcomed the Germans as liberators, figuring they could only be better than Stalin. Sadly they were wrong.
