was given command of a company in the 1st Turkestan Rifle Regiment. In October he was transferred to head the Regimental School. In August 1925 he was returned to the field and later commanded an outpost in the Pamir Mountains. In April 1928 he was promoted to command a regiment, a post he held for three years. His involvement in the quelling of the Basmachi revolt gained him his second Order of the Red Banner, awarded in 1929. In June 1931 Panfilov was appointed commander of the 8th Independent Rifle Battalion. In December 1932 he was transferred to head the 9th Red Banner Mountain Infantry Regiment. From 1935 Panfilov served in an instruction post in the Vladimir Lenin Red Banner Military Academy in Tashkent. In September 1937 he was designated the Central Asian Military District's chief of staff. In October 1938 he was assigned as the military commissar of the Kyrgyz SSR, and promoted to Combrig on 26 January 1939. On 4 June 1940 he received the rank of Major General. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 Panfilov began mobilizing reserves to be sent to the front. On 12 July he was assigned as the commander of the 316th Rifle Division, a new unit being formed in Alma Ata. The division consisted mainly of reservists from the Kazakh and Kyrgyz Soviet Republics. Battle of Moscow On 27 August 1941, the division arrived in Borovichi, near Leningrad, and joined the Fifty-Second Army. On 2 September, it was consigned to the reserve, spending a month in the rear. On 7 October, after the Wehrmacht commenced Operation Typhoon, the division was sent to the Moscow region, where it arrived on the 10th. It was stationed in the left flank of General Konstantin Rokossovsky's Sixteenth Army and tasked with defending a 41-kilometer long sector to the south of Volokolamsk, a part of the Mozhaisk fortified line.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120630215845/http://slovari.yandex.ru/~%D0%BA%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%B8/%D0%91%D0%A1%D0%AD/%D0%9F%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%86%D1%8B/ The 8th Guards Rifle Division]. Yandex.ru.</ref> On 15 October, the Germans attacked the region. After two weeks of fighting, the 316th was abandoned by the other defenders. Together with the rest of the Sixteenth Army, the division retreated towards Moscow. In spite of suffering heavy casualties, the 316th managed to significantly delay the German advance on the capital, buying time for the defenders of the city. On 11 November, Panfilov was awarded his third Order of the Red Banner for the personal courage he