diff --git a/railties/lib/rails/generators/rails/plugin_new/templates/Rakefile b/railties/lib/rails/generators/rails/plugin_new/templates/Rakefile
index 1bf9c8c831..b28a842731 100755
--- a/railties/lib/rails/generators/rails/plugin_new/templates/Rakefile
+++ b/railties/lib/rails/generators/rails/plugin_new/templates/Rakefile
@@ -4,8 +4,13 @@ begin
 rescue LoadError
   puts 'You must `gem install bundler` and `bundle install` to run rake tasks'
 end
-
-require 'rdoc/task'
+begin
+  require 'rdoc/task'
+rescue LoadError
+  require 'rdoc/rdoc'
+  require 'rake/rdoctask'
+  RDoc::Task = Rake::RDocTask
+end
 
 RDoc::Task.new(:rdoc) do |rdoc|
   rdoc.rdoc_dir = 'rdoc'
diff --git a/railties/lib/rails/tasks/documentation.rake b/railties/lib/rails/tasks/documentation.rake
index c8b4040151..79255d1f56 100644
--- a/railties/lib/rails/tasks/documentation.rake
+++ b/railties/lib/rails/tasks/documentation.rake
@@ -1,4 +1,10 @@
-require 'rdoc/task'
+begin
+  require 'rdoc/task'
+rescue LoadError
+  require 'rdoc/rdoc'
+  require 'rake/rdoctask'
+  RDoc::Task = Rake::RDocTask
+end
 
 # Monkey-patch to remove redoc'ing and clobber descriptions to cut down on rake -T noise
 class RDocTaskWithoutDescriptions < RDoc::Task