diff --git a/basis/xml/backend/backend.factor b/basis/xml/backend/backend.factor
deleted file mode 100644
index 5dee38695d..0000000000
--- a/basis/xml/backend/backend.factor
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,6 +0,0 @@
-! Copyright (C) 2008 Daniel Ehrenberg
-! See http://factorcode.org/license.txt for BSD license.
-IN: xml.backend
-
-! A stack of { tag children } pairs
-SYMBOL: xml-stack
diff --git a/basis/xml/errors/errors.factor b/basis/xml/errors/errors.factor
index ea6eb51415..fe152e84c3 100644
--- a/basis/xml/errors/errors.factor
+++ b/basis/xml/errors/errors.factor
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 ! See http://factorcode.org/license.txt for BSD license.
 USING: xml.data xml.writer kernel generic io prettyprint math 
 debugger sequences xml.state accessors summary
-namespaces io.streams.string xml.backend xml.writer.private ;
+namespaces io.streams.string ;
 IN: xml.errors
 
 TUPLE: parsing-error line column ;
diff --git a/basis/xml/state/state.factor b/basis/xml/state/state.factor
index 80fb6be982..b00d723a1a 100644
--- a/basis/xml/state/state.factor
+++ b/basis/xml/state/state.factor
@@ -17,3 +17,9 @@ C: <spot> spot
 : set-next ( char -- ) spot get swap >>next drop ;
 : get-check ( -- ? ) spot get check>> ;
 : check ( -- ) spot get t >>check drop ;
+
+SYMBOL: xml-stack
+
+SYMBOL: prolog-data
+
+SYMBOL: depth
diff --git a/basis/xml/tokenize/tokenize.factor b/basis/xml/tokenize/tokenize.factor
index 7a26385332..943f4e7a15 100644
--- a/basis/xml/tokenize/tokenize.factor
+++ b/basis/xml/tokenize/tokenize.factor
@@ -6,10 +6,6 @@ circular xml.entities assocs make splitting math.parser
 locals combinators arrays ;
 IN: xml.tokenize
 
-SYMBOL: prolog-data
-
-SYMBOL: depth
-
 : version=1.0? ( -- ? )
     prolog-data get [ version>> "1.0" = ] [ t ] if* ;
 
diff --git a/basis/xml/xml.factor b/basis/xml/xml.factor
index 29b647eb78..4dd872156e 100644
--- a/basis/xml/xml.factor
+++ b/basis/xml/xml.factor
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 ! See http://factorcode.org/license.txt for BSD license.
 USING: accessors arrays io io.encodings.binary io.files
 io.streams.string kernel namespaces sequences strings io.encodings.utf8
-xml.backend xml.data xml.errors xml.elements ascii xml.entities
+xml.data xml.errors xml.elements ascii xml.entities
 xml.writer xml.state xml.autoencoding assocs xml.tokenize xml.name ;
 IN: xml