Yh tbh this is unfortunately a museum-worthy example of how the left can also frequently fall into contrarianism. Postmodern concerns of presentism and so on aside, the idea that Julius-fucking-Caesar of all historical people should be taken as a progressive figure is pretty absurd (then again who were anything like progressive from our Marxist pov in that era except perhaps slaves and slave rebels like in the Servile Wars - and even then one of the first things slave revolt leaders did after declaring their own freedom was to take their own slaves).

He's obviously very important in Roman and therefore European/Mediterranean history, but even by the standards of the time he was a monster. He sat atop a social structure built, intrinsically, on aggressive war, rapine, conquest, mass murder, genocide, slavery and human trafficking. Whether or not he's exaggerating, he boasts in his writing about committing genocide against the Gauls. Honestly I think it's difficult not to real him in his own words and come out thinking that he was a sociopath.

A properly Marxist look at him would have noted a similarity with fascism in that Caesar is the last in a line of attempts within the Republic to use the recognised-as-legitimate authoritarian elements of the legal and political system to put an end to the internal conflict and class tensions. This in no way makes it progressive. No more so than a Nazi triangulating against trad-conservatives or a far-right populist against imperialist libs.

Further, we know that the reforms that Caesar is associated with were not truly progressive in any deep sense. You just need to look at the Republic under his dictatorship. And again, built on slavery, and only of interest to a minority of the priviledged citizenship of Rome (citizens were a minority within the Republic, and this was a peak period for slave numbers). It was realpolitik plain and simple. It is not class struggle between classes, but an attempt by one part of a vicious oligarchy to position itself better against the other in a society deeply affected by class tensions. Yes, Caesar was eliminated by his political opponents. But his faction then continued the struggle against them on his basis, and they founded the Empire. Again, Empire becomes the regressive solution to Republics ridden with class conflict.

There's a reason he played such an important role in alot of Italian fascist speculation and literature, where he could combine fetishes for the imperial and the populist.