A brush system for an electric motor, having a substantially semiannular resistor housing into which an electric flat resistor is introduced, two resistor terminals which protrude from the resistor housing and can be coupled in an electrically conducting manner to a conductor path of the electric motor, and a substantially semi-circular support plate that includes two bus bars to electroconductively couple the conductor path to the terminals and to two brush elements. The two terminals are arranged on the same narrow side of the resistor housing.