diff --git a/Objects/unicodeobject.c b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
index ecd44cb..2beb098 100644
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
@@ -1346,6 +1346,19 @@
 #endif
 	else if (strcmp(encoding, "ascii") == 0)
 	    return PyUnicode_AsASCIIString(unicode);
+        /* During bootstrap, we may need to find the encodings
+           package, to load the file system encoding, and require the
+           file system encoding in order to load the encodings
+           package.
+
+           Break out of this dependency by assuming that the path to
+           the encodings module is ASCII-only.  XXX could try wcstombs
+           instead, if the file system encoding is the locale's
+           encoding. */
+        else if (Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding &&
+                 strcmp(encoding, Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding) == 0 &&
+                 !PyThreadState_GET()->interp->codecs_initialized)
+	    return PyUnicode_AsASCIIString(unicode);            
     }
 
     /* Encode via the codec registry */