diff -r 9a0b46132876 Lib/_bootlocale.py
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/Lib/_bootlocale.py	Fri Oct 11 23:48:13 2013 +0200
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+"""A subset of the locale module used at interpreter startup, in order to
+get a critical function (getpreferredencoding()) with minimal import
+dependencies.
+
+Don't import directly from third-party code; use the `locale` module instead!
+"""
+
+import _locale
+import sys
+
+if sys.platform.startswith("win"):
+    def getpreferredencoding(do_setlocale=True):
+        if do_setlocale:
+            raise ValueError("do_setlocale must be False")
+        return _locale._getdefaultlocale()[1]
+
+elif hasattr(_locale, 'CODESET'):
+    def getpreferredencoding(do_setlocale=True):
+        if do_setlocale:
+            raise ValueError("do_setlocale must be False")
+        result = _locale.nl_langinfo(_locale.CODESET)
+        if not result and sys.platform == 'darwin':
+            # See above for explanation
+            result = 'UTF-8'
+        return result
+
+else:
+    from locale import getpreferredencoding
+
diff -r 9a0b46132876 Lib/_pyio.py
--- a/Lib/_pyio.py	Fri Oct 11 21:40:55 2013 +0200
+++ b/Lib/_pyio.py	Fri Oct 11 23:48:13 2013 +0200
@@ -1487,12 +1487,12 @@ class TextIOWrapper(TextIOBase):
                 pass
             if encoding is None:
                 try:
-                    import locale
+                    import _bootlocale
                 except ImportError:
-                    # Importing locale may fail if Python is being built
+                    # Importing _bootlocale may fail if Python is being built
                     encoding = "ascii"
                 else:
-                    encoding = locale.getpreferredencoding(False)
+                    encoding = _bootlocale.getpreferredencoding(False)
 
         if not isinstance(encoding, str):
             raise ValueError("invalid encoding: %r" % encoding)
diff -r 9a0b46132876 Lib/site.py
--- a/Lib/site.py	Fri Oct 11 21:40:55 2013 +0200
+++ b/Lib/site.py	Fri Oct 11 23:48:13 2013 +0200
@@ -426,8 +426,8 @@ def aliasmbcs():
     while they are always available as "mbcs" in each locale. Make
     them usable by aliasing to "mbcs" in such a case."""
     if sys.platform == 'win32':
-        import locale, codecs
-        enc = locale.getdefaultlocale()[1]
+        import _bootlocale, codecs
+        enc = _bootlocale.getpreferredencoding(False)
         if enc.startswith('cp'):            # "cp***" ?
             try:
                 codecs.lookup(enc)
diff -r 9a0b46132876 Lib/test/test_subprocess.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_subprocess.py	Fri Oct 11 21:40:55 2013 +0200
+++ b/Lib/test/test_subprocess.py	Fri Oct 11 23:48:13 2013 +0200
@@ -883,8 +883,9 @@ class ProcessTestCase(BaseTestCase):
         #
         # UTF-16 and UTF-32-BE are sufficient to check both with BOM and
         # without, and UTF-16 and UTF-32.
+        import _bootlocale
         for encoding in ['utf-16', 'utf-32-be']:
-            old_getpreferredencoding = locale.getpreferredencoding
+            old_getpreferredencoding = _bootlocale.getpreferredencoding
             # Indirectly via io.TextIOWrapper, Popen() defaults to
             # locale.getpreferredencoding(False) and earlier in Python 3.2 to
             # locale.getpreferredencoding().
@@ -895,7 +896,7 @@ class ProcessTestCase(BaseTestCase):
                     encoding)
             args = [sys.executable, '-c', code]
             try:
-                locale.getpreferredencoding = getpreferredencoding
+                _bootlocale.getpreferredencoding = getpreferredencoding
                 # We set stdin to be non-None because, as of this writing,
                 # a different code path is used when the number of pipes is
                 # zero or one.
@@ -904,7 +905,7 @@ class ProcessTestCase(BaseTestCase):
                                          stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
                 stdout, stderr = popen.communicate(input='')
             finally:
-                locale.getpreferredencoding = old_getpreferredencoding
+                _bootlocale.getpreferredencoding = old_getpreferredencoding
             self.assertEqual(stdout, '1\n2\n3\n4')
 
     def test_no_leaking(self):
diff -r 9a0b46132876 Modules/_io/_iomodule.c
--- a/Modules/_io/_iomodule.c	Fri Oct 11 21:40:55 2013 +0200
+++ b/Modules/_io/_iomodule.c	Fri Oct 11 23:48:13 2013 +0200
@@ -546,7 +546,7 @@ PyObject *
         }
         Py_CLEAR(state->locale_module);
     }
-    mod = PyImport_ImportModule("locale");
+    mod = PyImport_ImportModule("_bootlocale");
     if (mod == NULL)
         return NULL;
     state->locale_module = PyWeakref_NewRef(mod, NULL);