The activation of elementalsulfur (S8) has been achieved by means of electrogenerated cyanomethyl anion [easily obtained by galvanostatic reduction from acetonitrile/tetraethylammonium hexafluorophosphate (MeCN-Et4NPF6)]. The “activated” sulfur reacted with ylidenemalononitriles to give substituted 2-aminothiophenes in very high yields. This variation of the Gewald reaction has been carried out using