diff --git a/lib/ansible/executor/task_executor.py b/lib/ansible/executor/task_executor.py
index 2efee392c54..c225b2d425e 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/executor/task_executor.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/executor/task_executor.py
@@ -895,7 +895,8 @@ class TaskExecutor:
         else:
             try:
                 result = json.loads(to_text(stderr, errors='surrogate_then_replace'))
-            except json.decoder.JSONDecodeError:
+            except getattr(json.decoder, 'JSONDecodeError', ValueError):
+                # JSONDecodeError only available on Python 3.5+
                 result = {'error': to_text(stderr, errors='surrogate_then_replace')}
 
         if 'messages' in result:
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/connection/persistent.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/connection/persistent.py
index 1e377a75dd0..ac2406f4c1a 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/connection/persistent.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/connection/persistent.py
@@ -115,7 +115,8 @@ class Connection(ConnectionBase):
         else:
             try:
                 result = json.loads(to_text(stderr, errors='surrogate_then_replace'))
-            except json.decoder.JSONDecodeError:
+            except getattr(json.decoder, 'JSONDecodeError', ValueError):
+                # JSONDecodeError only available on Python 3.5+
                 result = {'error': to_text(stderr, errors='surrogate_then_replace')}
 
         if 'messages' in result: