diff --git a/Lib/textwrap.py b/Lib/textwrap.py
index 9582a1c..62ea0b4 100644
--- a/Lib/textwrap.py
+++ b/Lib/textwrap.py
@@ -9,6 +9,14 @@
 
 import string, re
 
+try:
+    _unicode = unicode
+except NameError:
+    # If Python is built without Unicode support, the unicode type
+    # will not exist. Fake one.
+    class _unicode(object):
+        pass
+
 # Do the right thing with boolean values for all known Python versions
 # (so this module can be copied to projects that don't depend on Python
 # 2.3, e.g. Optik and Docutils) by uncommenting the block of code below.
@@ -147,7 +155,7 @@
         if self.replace_whitespace:
             if isinstance(text, str):
                 text = text.translate(self.whitespace_trans)
-            elif isinstance(text, unicode):
+            elif isinstance(text, _unicode):
                 text = text.translate(self.unicode_whitespace_trans)
         return text
 
@@ -167,7 +175,7 @@
           'use', ' ', 'the', ' ', '-b', ' ', option!'
         otherwise.
         """
-        if isinstance(text, unicode):
+        if isinstance(text, _unicode):
             if self.break_on_hyphens:
                 pat = self.wordsep_re_uni
             else: