Index: Objects/unicodeobject.c
===================================================================
--- Objects/unicodeobject.c	(revision 85790)
+++ Objects/unicodeobject.c	(working copy)
@@ -9882,8 +9882,8 @@
 };
 
 /* Initialize the Unicode implementation */
-
-void _PyUnicode_Init(void)
+static int globals_initialized = 0;
+void _PyUnicode_InitGlobals(void)
 {
     int i;
 
@@ -9908,14 +9908,21 @@
 
     for (i = 0; i < 256; i++)
         unicode_latin1[i] = NULL;
-    if (PyType_Ready(&PyUnicode_Type) < 0)
-        Py_FatalError("Can't initialize 'unicode'");
 
     /* initialize the linebreak bloom filter */
     bloom_linebreak = make_bloom_mask(
         linebreak, sizeof(linebreak) / sizeof(linebreak[0])
         );
 
+    globals_initialized = 1;
+}
+
+void _PyUnicode_Init(void)
+{
+    if (!globals_initialized)
+        _PyUnicode_InitGlobals();
+    if (PyType_Ready(&PyUnicode_Type) < 0)
+        Py_FatalError("Can't initialize 'unicode'");
     PyType_Ready(&EncodingMapType);
 }
 
Index: Modules/main.c
===================================================================
--- Modules/main.c	(revision 85790)
+++ Modules/main.c	(working copy)
@@ -327,6 +327,7 @@
     orig_argc = argc;           /* For Py_GetArgcArgv() */
     orig_argv = argv;
 
+    _PyUnicode_InitGlobals();
     PySys_ResetWarnOptions();
 
     while ((c = _PyOS_GetOpt(argc, argv, PROGRAM_OPTS)) != EOF) {